


Chuck vs. the Wild Wild West

by Ultra



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, Coma, Drama, Drama & Romance, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Poor Chuck, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-10
Updated: 2011-03-10
Packaged: 2019-05-26 14:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15002501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: Team Bartowski's latest mission interrupts Chuck's plans for a John Wayne movie night with Morgan, then when Chuck gets hurt and slips into a coma-like state, his mind takes him to a whole other world...





	1. Chapter 1

“Y’know these missions never come at a time when I’m free to go on them?” Chuck lamented in a whisper from his place crouched between Sarah and Casey behind a stack of cardboard boxes. “I was in the middle of a John Wayne movie marathon with Morgan, just the westerns, but I still could’ve used a little more time!” he complained.

“John Wayne starred in eighty-four westerns, Bartowksi.” said Casey with a growl. “You really thought you were gonna watch them all in one night?”

“Eighty-four?” Chuck’s eyes went wide at that claim. “Wow, there were only twenty in the box set and we only expected to get through one of the four discs...” he considered.

“Could you two cut it out!” Sarah snapped, though her volume never rose above a whisper. “Mission first, movie club later.” she advised, peering out around their temporary barricade to see what the bad guys were doing.

Chuck couldn’t blame her for being pissed. Things had been strained between them at best since the whole Prague thing and now really wasn’t the best time to be chatting about DVDs, he guessed. Beyond the boxes that kept them hidden, Team Bartowski observed the dodgy dealings of what seemed to be a Ring Agent and some other men that Chuck had yet to flash on. That was confusing in itself but not completely unusual. The Intersect could only hold information on people the government knew about, and new people were joining the bad as well as good teams all the time.

“I’m going to try and get a little closer,” said Sarah, inching away to get a better view and perhaps hear a little more of what was being said too.

“See, this all seems weird to me,” said Chuck in a whisper. “If these are bad guys, why isn’t anything bad happening?” he asked Casey as they watched the men in their sights having what appeared to be a friendly chat, no guns in evidence, nothing dangerous at all. “and why can’t I flash on anyone else?”

“Beats me, Bartowski.” said Casey as he watched the scene before him with evident boredom. “Maybe that idiot brain of yours is sapping the decent intel out of the computer in your head.” he sneered. “Besides, you’re the one that said Hernandez was bad news, marked as Ring.”

“Marcus who?” said Chuck, not paying proper attention to his buddy because his eyes were fixed on Sarah as she got closer to the men up ahead.

“Marked. As. Ring.” Casey over-pronounced on purpose. “Moron,” he added with an eye-roll as he shifted his cramping legs, moving over a little, in part to get away from Bartowski’s stupid-ass rambling, and partly to be in a better position to cover Walker if a fight broke out sooner than they expected.

“Hey!” complained Chuck, perhaps a little too loudly as he shuffled over to Casey again. “There is no need to get... personal.” The last word got disjointed from the rest of his sentence as the cocking of a gun caught both Agents attention.

Turning as one, Casey and Chuck found themselves looking down the business end of a gun, one of the bad guys apparently having sneaked around behind them without their knowledge. Still Chuck didn’t flash, but honestly, he was grateful for that right now as the inevitable major-ass fight part of the mission broke out.

Rolling away, Bartowski ducked down behind the boxes from before as Casey swung into action and Sarah appeared out of nowhere to do the same. In a flailing mass of arms, legs and bullets, all Chuck could do was try and find his calm, access the Intersect, and get the knowledge he needed to help with the fighting back. Unfortunately, there was no weapon in his hand for him to focus on, and Chuck panicked as he glanced around at his severely outnumbered team mates.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he rambled, looking frantically at his barricade of boxes.

Every one was marked up with its contents, making Chuck think what a very efficient stocking system this place must have. It was a fleeting calm thought amongst so much panic and badness, and Chuck suddenly grinned when he spotted a box marked up as kitchen knives. Tearing his way in, he had a large dangerous looking serrated blade in his hand in a second and forced himself to concentrate on it. Suddenly the flash came, how to handle these simple kitchen implements and make them serious weapons.

“Sarah, Casey, down!” he yelled as he popped up from his hiding place, needing to ensure he caused no damage to his own team.

In a flurry of shining silver, half the box of knives came flying across the space between Chuck and the supposed Ring agents, successfully pinning each one to the wall of the warehouse by their clothing. Each blade dug in close enough to vital areas that nobody was going to dare to try and move, even if they weren’t literally speared through the flesh.

Unfortunately, though Chuck appeared to have caught all the bad guys with his skills, his victory was short-lived. Sarah and Casey got up from their ducked positions, just in time to realise there was one man left and able to fight.

“No!” yelled Walker, taking aim and firing past where Chuck was stood, but it was too late.

Even though her bullet hit its target, the guy in the black ski mask barely winced, his own gun going off at point blank range into Chuck’s back. Casey was up and running after the aggressor, but as he came around the corner it was as if the guy had just evaporated or something - he was absolutely nowhere to be seen.

“Casey!” Walker called him back and with a growl of frustration he went.

Bartowski didn’t look so good, out cold on the floor, his head now across Sarah’s lap as she did her best to help him. Both she and Casey were stunned to find no blood seeping through their fellow agent’s shirt, after all he had just been shot by a guy with no chance of missing.

Crouching down by the prone body of the former-Asset, Casey inspected the damage done and was very surprised to find that the supposed bullet lodged near Chuck’s shoulder blade was not exactly what he’d expected.

“This isn’t out of any ordinary gun.” He frowned, as Sarah fumbled in taking Chuck’s pulse and checking he was breathing.

“He’s still alive,” she said with a sigh of relief, but no less panic as she watched Casey do his best to pull the strange non-bullet from Chuck’s back.

Though the part that looked most like a normal projectile came away in his hand, a short needle remained stuck in Bartowski’s flesh.

“Oh my God!” gasped Sarah as she relayed what this could mean. “It’s not a bullet meant to kill him. They put something in his system... maybe poison?” she said, thinking fast.

“Sarah?” said Chuck, very vague and drowsy to the point where his eyes were still closed and her name slurred into almost nothing more than an odd noise. “Casey?”

“Hold it together, Bartowski,” he advised the younger guy. “We’ll get you outta here,” he assured him, taking hold of the geek and lifting him clean up off the ground out of Sarah’s arms.

She got to her feet and looked back at the agents all pinned against the wall. Sarah could happily shoot every one of them for what they were part of, for whatever it was they’d done to Chuck, but now wasn’t the time for petty vengeance. They had to get Chuck back to the Castle and hope they could save him from whatever was in his system now. The clean-up of this scum would wait until later.

“Hold on, Chuck,” she urged him as she ran alongside Casey back towards their bunker. “Please hold on.”

* * *

Chuck woke with a start, unable to remember for a moment where the hell he was or what was happening. As his mind ran fast with possibilities, he looked from left to right, fully expecting to see the usual surroundings of the Castle, possibly his bedroom, or on the off chance a hospital room. Chuck was stunned to find that not only was he in none of these places but also that he was in a moving vehicle of the no-engine variety.

“What the...?” he began as he took in the sound of horses’ hooves outside what appeared to be a stage coach.

Wide-eyed and pale with shock, Chuck leaned out of the nearby window hoping some air would clear his head, but he only found himself further panicked by the sight that met his eyes. A sandy road and landscape to matched whipped past him, a few stray cacti dotted around in the distance as a man sat atop of the coach he appeared to be in whipped at the horses and urged them on to town.

Sitting down gingerly in his seat, sweat pouring from his brow, Chuck looked down and took in the sight of his own body. Boots with spurs were jammed on his feet, blue jeans covered his legs and he wore a cowboy-style shirt and jacket too. He reached for what felt like a noose around his neck and found it to be a red neckerchief fastened there, the surprise of which meant his hand moved away fast and knocked the Stetson hat he’d been unaware he was wearing straight off his head and into his lap.

“Oh my God,” he gasped, just as the coach pulled up to a stop and the strangely-familiar voice of the driver yelled out to him.

“Welcome to Nerdville, Sheriff Carmicheal,” he called down with the kind of laugh that made Chuck’s blood run cold in spite of the fact he was sweating still.

Tentatively pushing open the door, he stepped out onto the dusty non-pavement and peered down into the town that was laid out before him. An old fashioned western town, apparently in the middle of nowhere, met his eyes, complete with over-bearing saloon, various men on horseback, and women in long dresses fetching water from a well. It was as if Chuck had stepped into the TV whilst watching a John Wayne movie or similar, except he was really here. He could taste the dust kicked up by the horses and stage coach as it was driven away. He could feel the heat of the midday sun on his face, as well as a decided sense of panic rising in his chest.

“Okay,” he said shakily as he looked around, turning full circle to do so properly. “I don’t think I’m in Burbank anymore.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chuck walked down the unfamiliar main street of an old-style Western town, trying his best not to look as freaked out as he felt. So far, nobody had tried to shoot at him and it didn’t seem like he was drawing too much attention to himself since only a couple of people even acknowledged he was there. They had only tipped their hats and greeted him with a friendly ‘Mornin’ Sheriff’. This had to happen three times in total before he realised what they were actually saying.

“Sheriff?” he echoed the word, sure now that he thought about it that the stage coach driver had said the same thing, welcoming him to town as Sheriff Carmichael.

Looking down at the shirt he wore, he pulled aside his jacket and spotted the gold star pinned beneath. There was a grin on Chuck’s face when he looked up, but only for a whole ten seconds as he came face to face with the business end of a gun. Immediately his hands were up as he backed up a step in panic. It was only when he looked from the barrel of the pistol pointed at him to the face of the man holding it that he stopped freaking out quite so much.

“Casey?” he said quietly, hardly able to believe it.

Before him stood his handler, NSA Agent Colonel John Casey, looking very inch the bad-ass cowboy. He wore mostly black, as he usually did, but gone was the smart suit he was often sporting, replaced by jeans, button-down shirt, big boots, and a Stetson hat, all in black. Even the gun in his hands was black, but he wasn’t planning on shooting Chuck, made clear now that the supposed-Sheriff had stopped panicking enough to realise he was actually being handed the weapon, rather than being threatened with it.

“Great, a jumpy Sheriff.” Casey huffed. “That’s just what this town needs. Anyway, thought I’d meet ya, give you this,” he said, handing over the gun which Chuck tried to take hold of like a man, panicking the whole time he was going to shoot himself in the foot if he wasn’t careful.

“Er, thank you,” he said, clearing his throat. “That’s very... neighbourly,” he added, hoping that was the right word to use, but hardly getting a chance to think about it as he felt a familiar feeling coming over him, even in this unfamiliar place.

Casey watched in confusion as Chuck stared down at the gun in his hands, eyes flickering madly a few seconds, before finally he wavered like he would fall.

“Woah!” said Chuck as he caught himself a second before pitching over. “Bryce. This was Bryce’s gun,” he said, not a question but a statement to Casey who seemed just mildly confused on how he knew such a thing.

“Yup, pretty much all that’s left of the old Sheriff,” he said with a grin that was every kind of disturbing. “Figured you could make better use of it than he could, being six feet under and all,” he said, chuckling in the scariest way.

Chuck shuddered as he ran over the information the Intersect had given him just a moment before. The gun in his hand had indeed belonged to former-Sheriff of the town, Bryce Larkin, who had been shot down by a gunman as yet unknown just a short time ago. Now the new Sheriff was in town, though Chuck wasn’t so sure he liked that idea at all. He was stopped from thinking about it too much when Casey spoke again.

“Anyway, the name’s Casey,” the man who Chuck already knew told him anyway, the two of them clearly not aware of each other in this strange world until now. “I own the saloon,” he explained, gesturing down the street to the very place, above which the sign read ‘The Gunslinger’s Arms’.

“Nice looking place,” said Chuck awkwardly. “I’m sure I’ll swing by for a Sarsaparilla.” He smiled, at which Casey looked less than impressed. “Yep, you’re definitely you,” he muttered to himself as he took in that expression of distaste he was so used to from the guy.

“I’ll let you get to your work now, Sheriff,” said Casey, turning to go with a look that told Chuck he was entirely underwhelmed and had just about zero respect for his supposed authority.

It didn’t so much bother ‘Sheriff Carmichael’, he was used to it, and right now he had more to worry about than whether he had Casey’s good opinion or not, he thought, as he glanced down at the gun in his hands. A dead man’s gun, a crazy western town where he himself was to be the law, and Casey was some kind of saloon-owning cowboy. Chuck’s eyes shifted to the world around him, so very far and away from the one he knew.

This wasn’t Burbank, probably not even California, and it certainly wasn’t 2010. Too many eyes started turning to stare as Chuck stood outside the building he must make his home and place of work both, he realised as he took notice.

“Okay,” he said to himself. “Okay, don’t panic. The Lone Ranger wouldn’t panic. Captain Mal wouldn’t panic,” he mumbled as he moved up to the door and let himself inside, slightly concerned that there appeared to be no need for a key.

It took Chuck all of three seconds to close the door behind him, locate the key and lock it up tight. Until he could figure out what the hell was going on here he could use not having any more visitors. It gave the supposed new Sheriff a little comfort to realise that he did still have the Intersect on his side, and apparently Casey was here in the little western town they called Nerdsville.

Chances were good he might run across other familiar faces, at least that was what Chuck was hoping. Sarah would be the person he most wished for right now, maybe Morgan, or Ellie and Awesome, anyone who would actually be pleasant to him. Though Casey would be worth having on his side should a fight break out, Chuck had no guarantees that the NSA agent’s western doppelganger would be on the side of the law as the version he knew was. He certainly didn’t seem to have liked the former Sheriff much, but then he and Bryce had never been buddies.

Casting an eye around the Sheriff’s station, it all seemed fairly standard issue according to every western movie and TV show Chuck had ever seen. A desk and chair, a couple of cabinets with booze and ammo inside, and some kind of holding cell at the back. A ladder led up to what he assumed to be his new home, and sure enough when he ventured up there he found he’d stuck his head into a large-ish room, complete with bed on one side and range on the other to cook his meals.

“Homey,” he said to himself, somewhat sarcastically as he spotted many a cobweb and such on his way back down to the office below. “Okay, so... argh!” he yelped with shock as he turned at the bottom of the steps and found two men stood by the door he was certain he’d locked just a minute ago.

“I told you he was jumpy,” said the taller of the two, a complete double of the Buy More’s own Jeff Barnes, though dressed in cowboy style garb instead of his usual Nerd Herder uniform.

The guy next to him that he had spoken to was the spitting image of Lester, in an almost Mexican looking black ensemble. Chuck might’ve laughed at how ridiculous they looked were he not a) so shocked by their presence here, and b) pretty sure he looked equally as dumb right now.

“Hey, hi there, um, folks,” he stammered out, attempting a smile as he stepped in to shake hands with the men. “I’m Sheriff Carmicheal,” he introduced himself, doing his best to seem normal, even putting a bit of a Texan twang on his words in the hopes of being more convincing.

“I’m Lester, this is Jeff,” he told Chuck as he shook the offered hand. “My buddy here drove you into town today, if you recall.”

“Ah, yes, I do,” replied the Sheriff with a click of his fingers as he put together the evidence and remembered the strong smell of booze and strangely familiar voice that had first welcomed him to Nerdsville. “Uh, so you fine fellas live in town?” he asked then, hoping to piece together what was going on here by gathering as much Intel as he could.

“We run a store,” explained Jeff, with his usual drunken slur. “Best general store in Buymoria County.” He nodded definitely, at which Lester grinned.

“It’s only one place now, but we’re planning an empire,” he said, reaching into his inside pocket and proudly handing over a hand-written business card to Chuck.

“Jeffster’s General Store,” he read aloud. “Wow, that’s... great,” he said awkwardly, considering a thumbs up sign and immediately changing his mind when he realised it probably wouldn’t be appropriate in this weird old-style world. “So, er, we just have the one store here, and the saloon,” he asked as he backed up to the edge of the desk, almost missing it as he sat down.

“Not much else we need.” Shrugged Jeff. “’Cept the Doc, but he’s outta town a few days.”

“Ah yes, Doctor Devon,” Lester agreed with a nod. “He is an excellent man. Some might say...”

“Awesome?” Chuck threw in with a smile, immediately realising is mistake as the two men before him shared a bewildered look. “Or not,” he added fast, quick to change the subject away from his faux-pas and get any more information that he could. “So, just the one Doctor around here?” he checked, wondering on the where-abouts of his sister.

In the real world, as he was calling it in his head already, Ellie was a doctor too, though he doubted she could be one here. Back in the old frontier days, women didn’t so much have jobs unless they were getting paid to be friendly and all. That thought in connection with his sister just made Chuck pretty much want to vomit and die at the same time.

“How many doctors does one place need?” asked Lester in confusion and slight amusement at how dumb the new Sheriff seemed to be in comparison to himself.

“’Course he has a nurse too,” said Jeff with a leer that Chuck was sure had made many a woman run screaming in any manner of times, places, and dimensions. “Ellie-Faye, man, she’s a real classy piece of...”

“Okay, that’s great.” Chuck clapped his hands, not wishing to hear such things applied to his sister, in any form that she took. “I, er, I have work to do now... I guess,” he said vaguely as he got up and begun ushering the two men out of the door, “but it was mighty fine meeting you fellas,” he faked his way through the western speak as he got Jeff and Lester’s cowboy counterparts out into the street and made to lock the door behind them. “Oh, just curious, how’d you get in when I had the door locked from the inside?” he asked them just before they left.

“We cut keys at our store, all the keys for the town,” Lester explained. “We have emergency spare copies of each one.”

“Including the one to the saloon,” said Jeff with a concerning wink in Chuck’s direction.

“Okay then.” He forced a laugh until the two turned and walked away. 

No sooner were they gone than Chuck had the door shut, locked, and bolted, with a chair pulled over and shoved up under the handle.

“Oh my God!” he gasped to himself as he leant back against the door and breathed too quickly. “Okay, so this is a dream,” he told himself, pinching his own arm and flinching violently. “Not a dream, so... it’s a hallucination or, or... oh God, where the hell am I?!” he panicked, wishing to God that he had someone here who could really help him. “Sarah, where are you when I need you?”

* * *

“It’s gonna be okay, Chuck. We’re here for you,” said Sarah as she leant over the unconscious form of the Asset-turned-Spy.

She and Casey had got him back to the Castle easily enough but it was scaring the hell out of Sarah what might be wrong with him since Chuck had yet to come around at all. Not so much as a flicker of his eyes or a murmur from his lips had occurred the whole way back and though his condition appeared no worse either, it was not a good sign to Sarah or Casey truth be told.

“First things first,” said the NSA Agent as he appeared with a med kit in one hand, a pair of needle-nosed pliers already removed and ready in one gloved hand to perform the delicate task of removing the needle left behind in Chuck’s prone flesh.

Sarah winced as Casey tugged the metal shard from near Chuck’s shoulder and carefully put it aside in a dish. In an attempt to be a professional, Agent Walker took a deep breath and went about cleaning up said wound and helping to make Chuck comfortable, whilst Casey looked into running tests on the substance this projectile type needle had contained.

Being professional had always been easier said than done when it came to Sarah and Chuck, and she was fooling herself if she thought that would ever really change. Right now, she had to concentrate, the life of a man she looked upon as a friend at the very least depended on her actions.

It wasn’t long before Chuck was patched up and seemingly comfortable and stable, albeit unconscious still. Sarah fetched the essential medical equipment she needed and hooked him up to it, monitoring his heart rate and breathing much more easily via the electronic read outs.

“I don’t understand,” she said with a shake of her head, looking to Casey who was still punching at keys on another computer, trying to get a bead on what this poison or whatever it was might really be. “His vitals are normal, hardly any different from an ordinary person sleeping.” She frowned a little.

Though she was happy enough to know Chuck had breath in his body and a regular rhythm to his heart, Sarah was confused that he wasn’t in worse shape considering the circumstances. Casey was about to shatter any illusions she may have about him staying that way, of course.

“This isn’t your run of the mill drug, Walker,” he told her, gesturing for her to come and look at the evidence as it flashed across the screen. “We were right to think poison but it’s more than that.”

“Hallucinogens?” she said as she read the screen with some alarm. “What is this stuff?”

“Some hybrid crap, meant to scare the kid to death before his body gives in to the poison?” Casey guessed, not really understanding any of this himself.

One thing was for sure, whatever this unusual substance was in Chuck’s body, it couldn’t be doing him any good.


	3. Chapter 3

It was late in the evening and Chuck really wasn’t feeling much better than he had been a few hours ago when he first found himself very suddenly in the middle of some kind of screwed up Western.

This had to be a dream, that was what he thought at first, but every attempt to wake himself up or snap himself out of it did nothing. Water on his face was real, wet, and cold. Slapping and pinching himself left real red marks and soreness he could do without. Apparently getting out of here was not as simple as that.

Chuck started trying to think like the spy he was supposed to be, as well as the computer nerd he had always known he was. First, he looked for clues, searched the Sheriff’s office and the home upstairs in the hopes of finding something, anything, that might explain why he was here and how he was supposed to get out. At every turn he had drawn a blank, apart from finding evidence that the information given to him by Casey’s lookalike and the alternate Jeff and Lester was true.

The former Sheriff here had been Bryce Larkin, killed in some kind of gun battle with a bad guy so bad he didn’t even seem to have a name. All that was left as proof Sheriff Larkin had ever existed was a white cowboy hat on a hook by the door and the gun Casey had handed over to Chuck following his arrival in town

Thinking on his meeting with cowboy Casey reminded the so-called Sheriff of the saloon across the way. Peeking out through the shutters, Chuck saw the lights were on and plenty of people were starting to feel at home at the drinking establishment that bore the name ‘The Gunslinger’s Arms’, a title that was as well suited to a place Casey owned as anything ever could be.

Heading on over there by himself seemed almost suicidal to Chuck, but then these people did think he was the Sheriff and that ought to help him. Besides, Sarah was always telling him that if he acted like he knew what he was doing, people would believe it. That had worked a few times, but only ever when he knew she and Casey were there for back up. In this world, there was no Agent Walker, at least not so far, and though Casey existed he wasn’t guaranteed to be on Chuck’s side.

Chuck’s saving grace was the Intersect, or so he figured. In a place like this where computers didn’t exist and wouldn’t for centuries, what Chuck held in his head was a very definite secret and could prove to be a real asset. He would know how to use the gun holstered at his side if he needed to, though shooting people here didn’t appeal any more than in the real world, truth be told.

“Can’t hide forever, buddy,” he told himself, taking a deep breath and deciding it was time to face this town and all the odd people it contained.

Opening up the front door, the man they called Sheriff Carmichael strode out in his best cowboy way, hoping to look tough and mean, even if that wasn’t how he felt. Hunting through inanimate objects in his new home had achieved next to nothing, talking with the people here might give him a better idea of what he needed to do next. Assuming this worked like so many computer games he had played before, chances were good there were tasks he had to carry out or a problem to overcome. When the mission was complete, the game would be over, and maybe then he could wake up or whatever it was he needed to do to return to the life he knew in present day Burbank, and Sarah.

“Okay,” he said to himself, not looking where he was putting his feet as he moved forward, tripping down the steps and almost going flat on his face into the dirt road.

Chuck managed to right himself fast and looked around quickly to ensure no-one had seen his mistake. A pair of women stood on the corner giggled at his antics, but Chuck was playing a part here and refused to crumble under the pressure.

“Ladies.” He nodded his head politely, tipping his hat as he strode on by towards the saloon, trying his best at being manly and such.

The swagger lasted all of a minute until he came to the saloon doors, bursting in like some kind of hero, only to be hit by the doors on the back-swing and almost falling on his face a second time. Making a quick recovery and hoping rather than believing nobody saw his rookie mistake, Chuck sidled up to the bar.

“Well, if it ain’t the new Sheriff of Nerdsville come dropping in to my humble establishment,” said Casey from the other side of the bar, that grin on his face that was entirely familiar to Chuck and no less scary than in the real world, perhaps actually scarier since there were no guarantees he wouldn’t shoot first and ask questions later here.

“I don’t like to duck out on an invitation,” he told him politely, still trying to maintain a tough exterior and putting on a bit of a Texan lilt still in the hopes of passing for a real Western-style hero like he figured he was supposed to be. “Any chance of a drink here?”

With a mere nod of his head and not another word spoken, Casey pulled the stopper from a large bottle of whiskey, poured out a shot that Chuck was pretty sure was worthy of the title triple rather than double and slid it the short distance down the bar to him. Chuck just barely caught the glass, spilling just a little of what was bound to be powerfully strong booze onto the bar top. Honestly, he half expected it to leave a burn mark where it had spilt, but he tried not to think about that too much.

“To the new Sheriff,” said a guy further down the bar and Chuck looked over to see Jeff and Lester toasting his good health. “May he live longer than the last one.” added Lester with an almost sinister grin.

“Couldn’t live much shorter,” said Jeff with a chuckle before they both drank.

Chuck looked from them to Casey to the other faces both familiar and not that filled the saloon.

“Here goes nothing,” he said to himself, picking up the shot glass and throwing the entire contents down his throat in one.

Fortunately, no-one paid much mind to the fact that it took every fibre of his being to swallow the stuff, or that he was using the bar to support his entire weight as a fire felt as if it were going to set him alight from the inside. Poor Chuck strained to even breath for a full minute or more, and yet not a man in the saloon batted an eye. All focus was on the door, and just as soon as he got his bearings back, Chuck realised why, his eyes following every other man’s gaze in the place.

There by the door, a small case in either hand, stood a beautiful woman. She had blonde hair piled up on her head, and a hat pinned in place that matched the big ruffled affair of a dress that hugged every curve of a perfect body. Chuck felt like he was going to start choking and dying all over again, without another drop of whiskey passing his lips. He felt doubly taken aback when his eyes landed on the face of said beautiful woman who hovered in the doorway still with a coy smile painted on her delicate lips.

“Sarah?” he gasped, and there was no doubting he was right, it was her.

* * *

“C’mon, Walker.” Casey encouraged her out of the Castle but she was less than eager to go.

She remained by the glass of the cell door a while longer, staring in at Chuck’s prone form laid out on the bed. It was the best place for him, locked up for his own protection with wires and tubes linking him to machines that kept a watch on his vitals. The monitors were linked up in such a way as to trigger alarms on both Sarah and Casey’s phones should anything change or go wrong. In the meantime, all they could do was wait for the special scientists, the CIA and NSA elite, to break down the sample of the assumed poison in Chuck’s system and figure out a cure.

“They have to be fast,” said Sarah as she turned to follow Casey up the stairs out of the bunker. “Chuck is strong but this thing... what if it’s stronger, Casey?” she asked worriedly, letting a little emotion through for this one rare occasion.

“Don’t go soft on me, Walker, now isn’t a good time,” her partner reminded her. “Now we have to cover for Bartowksi until we get this figured out. If his sister or his friends realise what’s really going on...” he left the warning hanging there, knowing he didn’t have to say any more for her to understand.

Sarah nodded her head and took a deep breath in an attempt to pull herself together. She had to be stronger than this, Chuck needed her to be. She and Casey had to see to it that he had a life worth waking up to when that day came. They had decided to tell work he’d had a family crisis and tell the family that work had sent him on a trip. The only possible overlap was Morgan, and Casey had that well covered. Knowing how the idiot Grimes loved secrets and such, he was going to play the little sucker, tell him his own tale and a secret to keep. He’d do it too, knowing if he didn’t Casey could kill him with his pinky finger, not caring whether he was the BuyMore Ass Man or not.

“Casey?” said Sarah as they stepped out into the Orange Orange and he locked the bunker door behind them. “If what you said is true, if those drugs are designed to make Chuck hallucinate, dream things he can’t deal with... I don’t understand why the Ring would put him through that.”

“Maybe they wanna test him out, see how much he can take?” Casey considered. “Either way, why couple the hallucinogens with real poison that could kill him anyway?”

“Unless the test isn’t just on his mind but his body too?” Sarah guessed as she looked back the way they had come, thinking of Chuck alone and vulnerable in the Castle.

There was enough security to protect him, he should be fine, the slightest change in any of his vital signs and she and Casey would know about it, but it didn’t stop her worrying.

Her partner was soon headed off for his morning shift at the BuyMore and Sarah knew she had to go see Ellie and Awesome before long. She and Chuck were due at their house for dinner tonight, she was going to have to tell them they weren’t going to make it and an excuse as to why. Lying was Sarah Walker’s profession, her very name being an untruth in itself, but when it came to Chuck and his ever-loving family and friends, such lies did not come easy. The biggest of course was the one she kept trying to tell herself, that she didn’t love Chuck Bartowski with her whole heart and didn’t care for him as more than a colleague. Yeah, that was the biggest lie she’d ever told in her life, and even she didn’t believe a word of it.

* * *

“Can I help you, Miss?” Casey asked the blonde that bore a striking resemblance to Sarah Walker, though dressed very differently to any way Chuck had ever seen her look in modern-day Burbank.

“I hope so.” She smiled politely, the complete opposite to her usual badass self as men moved aside to let her get closer to the bar right next to Chuck, who could not help but stare. “I was hoping you might have a room I could take for a few nights while I’m in town,” she asked Casey who had the strangest smile on his face when Chuck’s gaze shifted from one to the other.

If he didn’t know better the Asset-turned-Spy-turned-Sheriff would think that his two handlers were making eyes at each other, and that just made him feel a little ill. Casey was soon agreeing to Sarah taking a room as she had requested and asking if she had more bags she might need help with.

“I can do that!” said Chuck, with too much enthusiasm, though at least this swift offer stopped any other men cutting in, since none were sure they wanted to mess with the new Sheriff in town, given his reputation.

“Thank you... Sheriff,” said Sarah with a smile and a fluttering of her eyelashes that made Chuck grin too when she noticed his badge and seemed impressed.

Things were looking up in this strange little world.


	4. Chapter 4

“You can just put those right there in the corner,” said the blonde and beautiful Western-style Sarah, as Chuck followed her into the room she’d be renting, her cases in his hands.

He had expected them to be light, after all the lady had been carrying them as if they were nothing at all. Chuck was now finding that Sarah must indeed be as strong in this alternate world as she was in the real one, capable of carrying what felt like bags full of concrete without even flinching.

She had introduced herself as Sarah Walker, that pleased Chuck at least to know he could call her by the same name, though a part of him had almost hoped she might reveal her real name in this odd world.

“Thank you, Sheriff,” she said with a kind smile as she unpinned her hat and put it down on the night stand. “I’m very grateful.” she assured him.

“You’re very welcome, Sarah... Miss Walker,” he corrected himself when he realised what he’d done.

They didn’t know each other here, not as they did in the real world. Back in the frontier days he was living in right now, you didn’t use first names so fast, not unless you were invited to.

“That’s alright, Sheriff, you can call me Sarah if you prefer,” she told him easily, making eyes at Chuck in such a way as to make him wonder exactly what was going on here, “but I’ll feel silly calling you just Sheriff,” she said, waiting for him to fill in a name for her.

“Charles Carmichael,” he told her, in suave spy style as he took her hand and kissed it.

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Charles.” She smiled, trying out the name on him and looking as if she liked it.

Chuck felt almost giddy when she looked at him that way. In the real world, as he was choosing to call it in his head, things had gotten so complicated between him and Sarah. Here they had only just met and she was smiling at him like she really, really liked him. Of course, Chuck wasn’t as oblivious as he had been that first day of meeting Sarah in the Burbank BuyMore. He knew that people would pretend to like you, to be your friend, or even more than friend, to get you just exactly where they wanted you. He’d seen Sarah do it and he was wary of being played here too, especially when he was essentially alone and lacking in back-up.

“I should be going,” he said, quickly releasing her hand when he realised he was still holding it and backing up towards the door.

He misjudged his exit, his back clanging against the cabinet by the door, before he managed to move over and get out, closing the door behind him. Once on the other side, Chuck let out a breath he barely knew he’d been holding. This place was just crazy. Now Sarah was here and as beautiful as ever, though apparently not at all badass like she was in the real world. She seemed like any normal attractive young woman of the time, using her wits and feminine wiles to get by, though honestly, Chuck wouldn’t be too surprised if he found out later that the was a lot more to her than that.

Heading back down the stairs to the bar, Chuck found himself being watched by a few more pairs of eyes than he would’ve liked. He assumed that the men were just jealous, after all, he hadn’t seen too many women in this town yet, and none as pretty as Sarah. He’d just been alone with her, in a bedroom, for a whole five minutes. Could be some of these cowboys just dreamed their whole life of getting even that far with a woman. A cocky smile was soon on the new Sheriff’s face as he headed back to the bar, slammed his hand down on the surface and ordered another shot of whiskey, clearly forgetting how the last one had made him feel!

“I’m just sayin’ maybe we oughta warn the guy,” said a voice further down the bar that Chuck couldn’t miss, and he turned his head to see Lester trying to get Jeff to be quiet at all costs.

“Are they talking about me?” said Chuck, trying not to look as nervous as he felt as he turned to Casey and asked the question. “Are they...? Should I be warned about something?”

“Nah, something and nothing,” Casey assured him with a shake of his head as he polished up a few glasses behind the bar, something Chuck had watched him do a hundred times before when the NSA Agent had played barman on many a mission. “The Indians, up in the hills,” he said with a tilt of his head in the right direction. “They’ve been making some threats and such on Nerdsville,” he admitted, “but it never comes to anything.”

“Okay.” Nodded Chuck, staring down at the shot of whiskey in his hand. “Well, that’s good,” he said thoughtfully, suddenly wondering why he had this drink and realising he’d ordered it in a real moment of madness. “Um, so the Indians,” he went on after a moment’s pause, “they didn’t... Bryce Larkin, he wasn’t...?”

“Killed by the Indians?” asked Casey with an amused smirk. “No,” he said definitely, allowing Chuck to breathe a sigh of relief for all of two seconds, until the barman turned around from replacing the glasses on the shelf and continued. “That was the outlaw been bird-dogging this town for years,” he admitted with an evil kind of a grin that made Chuck’s blood run cold.

The shot of whiskey he’d been contemplating and had almost completely decided not to drink was hastily thrown into his mouth then, burning a trail down his throat that had him coughing in a second.

“Outlaw?” he said, almost too quietly to be heard as he strained to form the words. “What outlaw?” he tried again after clearing his throat.

“They call him Ring,” said Jeff as too many conversations came to an abrupt halt and the atmosphere in the saloon changed.

The piano player stopped mid-tune and it was only when the music ceased that Chuck really paid any mind to the fact it’d been there at all. He noticed now, looking over at the large man sat on the piano stool, his voice oddly familiar when he began to speak.

“Marcus Ring, that old devil,” he said, turning as he stood up from his seat and giving Chuck the shock of his life. “You gonna be the new Sheriff of this town, boy, you gonna have to do something about that fella, make no mistake,” said the man, an exact replica of Big Mike as he strode on over to the bar.

Casey already had a drink poured for the guy for which there appeared to be no charge for whatever reason. Mike picked up the glass without even looking at it, still staring at Chuck as he drank the liquor down. 

“Name’s Mike,” he introduced himself a moment later, holding out a hand for Chuck to shake. “Folks round here just call me the The Boss Man, on account of me havin’ been here longer than any other person livin’.”

“Wow, that’s quite a title,” said Chuck with a nervous smile as he shook Mike’s hand. “I’m Charles Carmichael,” he told him. “Well, Sheriff Carmicheal,” he corrected himself, realising that was probably the more proper way for him to be introducing himself right now. “So, are we expecting this outlaw guy to show up any time soon, or...”

“Comes and goes as he pleases, that one.” Big Mike’s double shrugged as he pulled himself onto the barstool beside Chuck’s own with some effort. “Just hopin’ the Doc gets back to town before he does. Reckon Ring’s gonna be back here double-quick when he finds out Nerdsville got itself a new man of the law.”

“Yes, sir.” Casey nodded his agreement. “He’s gonna wanna put you in a hole right next to Larkin where he reckons you belong,” he said, not seeming hugely worried about that fact, quite the contrary Chuck supposed as he watched that wicked smile appear on the cowboy’s face once again.

Swallowing hard, Chuck was determined to be brave and strong, after all, he was Sheriff here it was what he was supposed to do. Besides, if this was some kind of hallucination, which he was pretty sure it had to be, it wasn’t like he could actually get hurt or die or anything, right?

* * *

“This can’t be right,” said Beckman as she read the paperwork before her on the desk. “How can you stop the tests at the lab? Agent Bartowski is in serious danger of dying,” she pointed out, anger and frustration slipping into her tone as she stared up at the man pacing in front of her desk.

It wasn’t that General Beckman wanted to have any kind of affection for the former Asset turned Special Agent. Chuck Bartowski had been quite the thorn in her side over the years, ever since the Intersect had been put into his head the first time around. The fact of the matter was that he was also a decent man and did not deserve to be put in this kind of danger. She would throw him into situations that were tough to get out of, after all that was his job, especially now as he was being put through his paces and fast becoming a fully-fledged Agent in his own right. What Beckman was less comfortable with was the realisation that this latest tragedy to befall Agent Bartowski was another test itself, one for which there was no back-up plan, that neither Walker or Casey were privy to, and that she herself had little or no control over. She saw no real point to it other than causing pain, panic, and possible death in more than one quarter, and she was not about to stand for it.

“We have to get him a doctor,” she said firmly, slamming her hand on the desk as she got to her feet, still only half the height of the young man before her.

“No, we don’t,” he said flatly, not even flinching as he stared down at her, apparently unmoved even as the unflappable Beckman began losing her cool.

“Agent Shaw...” she tried to say, but he held up a hand to silence her in an instant.

“This isn’t your choice, General,” he told her, with a coldness in his voice that was enough to make even Beckman shudder. “Chuck does this himself; no help, no doctors. It’s the way it has to be.”

* * *

“Well, if it ain’t the famous Doctor Woodcombe,” said Casey, wearing a smile that Chuck was certain to be fake, even if he wasn’t sure why his fellow agents cowboy alter-ego should be at odds with the wild west version of Awesome. “Serve the good doctor would ya, Charlie,” Casey instructed the faceless bartender to his left, right after he’d shaken hands with Devon.

“Hey, you must be the new Sheriff in town,” said the facsimile of Captain Awesome, dressed in different clothes of course and carrying a doctor’s bag that he parked under the barstool when he sat own beside Chuck. “Good to meet you,” he said with a grin as he shook the other man’s hand a little too hard.

Fortunately, Chuck had been ready for the manoeuvre and hid the pain well as he pulled his arm away and stifled a wince. Seemed Devon was as built here as he was in the real world, but then that made sense. Just as soon he as he had a drink in his hand he was offering a kind of a toast to Chuck.

“Here’s to you not needing my services for a good long while, Sheriff.” He winked, and Chuck could only find a nervous laugh in response as he clinked his glass of whiskey against Devon’s own and faked drinking down the shot for fear of getting very wasted before too long - he figured he was better off with a clear head in this place.

“So, you’re the Doctor,” he said pointlessly as Devon called for a refill from the barman, “and you have a nurse named Ellie?” he asked as casually as he could, mindful of arousing any kind of suspicion, but at the same time curious to know more about the role his sister had here, if she was not in fact his sister at all.

“Oh yeah, Ellie-Faye is... she’s awe-inspiring.” He smiled fondly as he thought of her. “Incredibly intelligent, y’know, for a woman,” he said, at which Chuck choked just a little.

He could have argued about it, but the fact was, the wild west was pretty sexist, hence the fact Ellie was only a nurse and not the high-flying doctor she was back home.

“Hey, you okay, Sheriff?” Devon checked, as the other guy seemed to struggle a minute to catch his breath. “Maybe I should check you over?” he suggested, but Chuck shook his head and waved his arms to signal that no, he didn’t need that.

“I’m fine,” he croaked out eventually, clearing his throat one more time before speaking again. “Really, I am. I just need some air is all,” he said, gesturing towards the saloon doors and exiting through them with a help of a pat on the back from Devon that was a little more forceful than he would have liked.

Out in the cool night air, Chuck did feel a little better, for all of a minute until he spotted Casey across the way. He had barely noticed the guy leave the bar, but come to think of it, it had been the barman, a guy they called Charlie, that had been pouring the shots for the past while. Casey was now at the door of a house across the street, knocking softly and looking around as if he was checking no-one was watching him.

Chuck ducked around the side of the building out of view, peering around the corner just in time to see the door be opened by a person unseen and Casey slip inside. Looking around and seeing that nobody else was in the area, Chuck ran across the dusty road to the row of buildings on the other side. If Casey was up to something of the no-good variety then he needed to know about it, partly because he was meant to be the Sheriff here, but just as importantly because it might give him some clue as to how to get out of this crazy place!

With his back against the outer wall of the house Casey had just entered, Chuck slipped silently along, trying not to make a sound. When he came to the window, he carefully peering through a crack in the not-quite-closed shutters, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

There was Casey, with his arms around a woman, his lips crushed to hers, kissing her like it was going out of style. Sure, it wasn’t as if Chuck had never seen the guy in a clinch before, but it was as disturbing as it was sweet in a lot of ways.

Deciding this was not something he needed to be spying on, Chuck was about to turn away from the scene when the couple parted and he got his first good look at the woman’s face.

“Oh my God!” he gasped at the realisation that the woman in Casey’s arms was none other than Ellie’s wild west counterpart, Nurse Ellie-Faye. “Oh, this is a bad place, a very bad place!” Chuck said to himself as he looked away, trying to scrub the image out of his brain as he hurried to the Sheriff’s station to hide, wishing this world so very far away!


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey, Walker!” Casey called Sarah from the door of his apartment just the second he saw her leave the Bartowskis’ place. “Get in here.” He gestured for her to come over and checking that nobody was watching she did just that.

“What’s going on, Casey?” asked Sarah as he let her inside and closed the door behind her. “Did you cover for Chuck at the BuyMore?”

“Sure, it’s no problem,” he assured her. “Big Mike and all the morons think there’s a family crisis and he had to go out of town because his Aunt’s dying,” he explained as he sat down at the desk and hammered away at the computer there. “You cover the family?”

“Of course.” Sarah nodded as she moved up behind him to look over his shoulder. “Ellie and Devon think Chuck had to go on a last-minute trip for BuyMore business,” she explained. “Is that all you called me over here for because...?” she stopped mid question as she realised the real reason she was here.

Sarah’s eyes were wide and she fought the urge to cry when she peered over Casey’s shoulder and saw what he’d punched up on the computer screen. He had the live feed for the camera that was watching over Chuck in Castle and the view was not good. The poor guy was writhing around like a crazy person, flinging out an arm and then a leg, as if he were trapped in a bad dream he couldn’t wake up from.

“Those hallucinogens are doing a number on the kid,” said Casey, shaking his head. “Far as I can tell, he’s stable, he’s just having some kind of nightmare, and with the sedatives mixed into that poison, there’s no waking up for a hug and a glass of milk,” he said, looking up at Walker who hovered behind him still, her hand over her mouth.

She hated to see Chuck suffering like this. Covering for his absence was the easy part, she could do that in her sleep, but knowing he was hurting and there was next to nothing she could do felt as if it were killing her as much as that poison inside Chuck might be trying to harm him.

“What’s happening with the lab tests?” she asked too suddenly and too harshly, though Casey never flinched at her tone.

“The General will get back to us when they know anything,” he said easily. “Can’t think it’ll be long now.”

“It better not be,” said Sarah as she continued to watch Chuck flailing around before her eyes, his own tight shut as he fought some unseen foe that only he knew.

Heaven only knew what was going on inside his head, where he thought he was, or what he thought he was fighting. Sarah feared for him enough in the real world but knowing there was some kind of nightmare happening inside his head, that he might be walking in a world that was built with the purpose to frighten and harm him, and there was nothing she could do; it simply broke her heart.

* * *

Chuck woke up too suddenly in a cold sweat. He sat bolt upright in the bed and immediately too many memories hit him square between the eyes. This wasn’t his room, hell, this wasn’t even his reality! He was trapped in this crazy wild west world in which he was the Sheriff and, horror of horrors, his sister enjoyed making out with John Casey!

No, he couldn’t pass any of it off as a dream, though he had kind of hoped when he turned in for the night that the morning would bring him back to the real world, that all of this would just be some weird reaction to spicy food and too many John Wayne movies. Unfortunately, it seemed he wasn’t that lucky. If his sub-conscious had created this place, it’d done a damn fine job at making it very real and apparently, he wasn’t leaving any time soon.

As Chuck got out of the less than comfortable wooden bed and tried to get the feeling back in all his limbs, he considered his options. Since his dream theory had been shot to hell, that really only left one other way out of this place. There must be a reason, a purpose for his being sent here. Much like the video games that he played with Morgan, there would be a mission to complete and only when it was done would he be released from this strange alternate world. Chuck really wished he had his little bearded buddy around to help him out of this jam, but so far, he was one of the few people from his life that seemed to be missing.

Standing in front of the dusty grimy mirror that hung on the wall, Chuck took in the sight of himself in a cowboy hat and the whole Sheriff garb. It was kind of cool actually, though the idea of strapping a very real gun to himself didn’t thrill Chuck at all. He had considered just not loading it since he couldn’t imagine actually wanting to shoot anybody in this place. Of course, he was forced to reconsider when the people at the bar last night told him not only about the Indians that might attack, but also some guy named Marcus Ring.

Clearly this mysterious man was the embodiment of the organisation planning to bring him down. They had killed Bryce in the real world and the dangerous outlaw they called Ring had done for him here too. Now Casey and the others seemed to think he’d be gunning for Chuck and that thrilled him not at all. Sure, he was learning to be a real spy now but he still wasn’t a fan of the violence and refused to fire a gun if it was carrying real live bullets. Unfortunately, Chuck was pretty certain that tranq guns didn’t exist in the wild west and so it was Bryce’s old revolver or nothing at all.

With the holster strapped to his body and the very real gun residing inside, Chuck tried to walk properly as he headed outside into the street. He honestly wasn’t sure where he was headed but he had to go somewhere and try something. Moseying across to the store called Jeffsters, Chuck thought he’d made the right choice until he ran straight into a familiar face.

“Excuse me,” he apologised as he helped the young lady right herself, trying not to react to the fact she looked exactly like his sister.

“That’s okay, Sheriff.” She smiled politely. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Ellie Faye, the doctor’s nurse.”

“A pleasure, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat and forcing a smile that waned some as he saw the image of his dear sister and his somewhat vicious handler flash behind his eyes. “So, so wrong,” he muttered to himself as Ellie walked away and he found himself faced by Jeff and Lester behind the counter of the quaint little grocery store.

“Why can’t I get a woman like that,” sighed Jeff as he watched Ellie disappear from view, practically salivating at the sight of her ass.

“Because she has class, Jeffrey,” his friend told him simply, “and you don’t.”

“Hey, guys.” Chuck cut in, trying not to be freaked out by the fact this scene could just as easily have played out in the Burbank BuyMore in the year 2009 as it was here. “I, er, I was just...”

Just when Chuck was trying to think of a good reason why he might be here, or what he might like to purchase, a ruckus started up outside that Jeff and Lester both ran to see. Chuck followed because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do and got out the door behind his two other-world friends just as a horse arrived outside with a very tired man atop it.

“Oh, it was awful, terrible, I could’ve been killed!” the Emmett look-alike complained as he was helped down from his steed. “Those Indians, I just... I don’t know how I survived!” he lamented, in over the top dramatic fashion as Awesome and Ellie suddenly appeared to tend to the man who had been laid down on the ground by now.

“Them damn Indians gotta be dealt with,” said Casey, looking to Chuck as if it were his job to do something about it.

Of course, a moment before he opened his mouth to protest, Chuck remembered it really was his job, after all, he was the Sheriff.

“You can’t expect one man to go up into those hills alone,” said Sarah, who Chuck had barely noticed the arrival of until she spoke then. “Sheriff or not, they’ll kill him where he stands.”

“You want to offer your services, Miss Walker, be my guest,” said Casey without a care as he helped Doctor Devon to carry the guy that seemed to be Emmett off to somewhere more comfortable where he could be helped.

Chuck watched them go and then turned his head and found the crowd of people in the street all staring at him, including Jeff and Lester, and Sarah too. He was expected to do something. He was the Sheriff of Nerdsville, the only person in BuyMoria County who could save the day, and there was no back up here. Casey didn’t care, Sarah wasn’t the badass she ought to be, there was no General Beckman to turn to as far as he knew, but apparently, he was not entirely alone. This he realised when he was offered a horse with the intention of him riding into the hills to deal with the Indian population.

“But I can’t even... ride,” he said more to himself than anyone else, the sentence becoming disjointed as a familiar feeling shot through him, his eyes flickering madly and suddenly he had full knowledge of how to ride a horse like a pro.

Running up alongside the animal, he leapt up into the saddle in one fluid movement and began galloping out of town without a moment’s pause. He had no idea that far behind him, Sarah was making a dash for the livery to grab herself a steed and head out after him.

* * *

Chuck had been riding for some time before his brain caught up to what he was actually doing. He was headed towards the hills where the local Indian tribe lived, the angry Indian tribe that apparently hated the town of Nerdsville and all its inhabitants. Here he was, armed with only one gun and no real experience of dealing with such a situation. The Intersect had got him this far, let him know how to ride, and would not fail him if he needed to fight or shoot or whatever. Unfortunately, Chuck wasn’t exactly comfortable yet with the idea of killing anybody, dreamworld alternate reality or not. Seemed he might have little choice in the matter though, this he soon realised as he saw three ponies coming towards him, carrying what appeared to be the Indian chief flanked by a pair of bodyguard types.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” he said to himself, taking in a shaky breath as he rode his horse to the bottom of the next hill and was stunned to come face to face with the Indian Chief that looked shockingly familiar.

“How...?” he began, feeling shocked.

“Oh, right. How!” the doppelganger of Morgan Grimes responded to what he assumed to be a greeting, raising one arm in a kind of salute. “Y’know, we don’t actually say that, it’s just... Oh my God!” he reacted suddenly when he moved around a little to get the sun out of his eyes and looked straight into the face of an old friend. “Chuck! What are you doing here?”

“I have no idea!” he responded with a shake of his head, so glad to have a friend here and yet stunned by his presence, not least dressed as an Indian Chief in a full head dress, riding a pony. “Morgan, this place is crazy! How are you even here?” he asked, at which the little bearded dude shook his head.

“Man, it is such a long story.” He sighed, before looking between the Indians sat on horses either side of him just at the same time Chuck did. “Oh, right. Guys, it’s cool,” he told the pair who looked concerned. “Go tell tribe that all is good,” he instructed them in a slightly deeper voice than was his own. “Big Chief Running Beard say no attack today,” he said with hand actions that meant nothing much to Chuck and probably even less to the Indians he was waving his arms around at.

Still, in a few moments that were headed back up the hill at a fair pace, apparently doing as they were told. Chuck was wide-eyed and his mouth was open like he was catching flies through the whole thing, still astounded by the sight of his friend dressed this way and apparently knowing who he was.

“I don’t understand,” he said aloud, not thinking or caring whether he was right or wrong to do so right now.

“Me either,” said Morgan aka Big Chief Running Beard as he hopped down from his horse, prompting Chuck to do the same. “I mean, I knew you’d go far, man, but Sheriff of Nerdsville? Wow!”

“And you’re a Chief?” said Chuck, feeling even more strange right now than when he first arrived in this place. “Of an Indian Tribe?”

“Chuck, please,” he said with an eye roll. “Native Americans, dude, c’mon!”

“Oh, right, sorry.” His friend shook his head. “But you were going to attack the town. Emmett came back injured...”

“Milbarge?” Morgan interrupted with a look. “We never touched the guy. In fact, I sent my man after him to tell him his horse looked like it was about to slip a shoe, next thing y’know he’s galloping off into the distance, screaming like a crazy person,” he explained, with the over the top hand gestures he was sometimes prone too. “We never even fired an arrow his way”

Chuck nodded along, hoping that by the end of this conversation he might better understand how and why he was here, and yet somehow, he doubted it. As Morgan went on, asking him how things were and saying they hadn’t seen each other in years, Chuck got the distinct impression that his best bud had not been sucked into this world like he had, but belonged here just as alternate Casey, Sarah, and everyone else did. Apparently, they’d known each other before today, so Chuck as Sheriff Charles Carmichael was meant to exist here too. It was almost too much for his brain to take.

“But hey, now you’re in charge, consider Nerdsville an arrow free zone, man,” Morgan was assuring him with a slap on the shoulder as Chuck tuned back into the little guy’s voice. “We will not be screwing this up for you, I swear.”

“Well, thanks, Morgan... I mean, Chief,” he corrected himself, though it seemed that the name wasn’t foreign to his friend and most likely had been what he was called before being re-dubbed Big Chef Running Beard by the Native American tribe somehow.

“So, how do you wanna play this?” asked Morgan as he moved to get back on his pony. “We send a few fake smoke signals, you fire a few wide shots, make it look like a scuffle?” he suggested, off Chuck’s confused look he added. “Well, you wanna look like the hero, right? I figured I’d help you out to look good in your Sheriff position, us being old friends and all.” He smiled.

“Er, okay, yeah.” Chuck nodded his agreement. “Smoke signals, wide shots, that’ll work,” he said as the pair got back on their steeds and made to ride away in opposite directions. “Weirdest place ever,” he muttered to himself as he reached for Bryce’s gun that was now his own.

Looking at it set off the Intersect again, and as he turned to look over his shoulder he spotted two Indians he knew were to be the targets he must miss. A little panic set in when Chuck realised that if he let the Intersect take over, he really could kill those people he’d sworn not too.

“Charles!”

Fortunately, the fates were on his side as the yelling of his name meant his concentration was blown and even the Intersect couldn’t right the mess he made of the shots he fired.

“Sarah?” he gasped at the sight of her as he turned his horse back around and saw her riding towards him, pretty sure she was hiding a gun in the folds of her long dress even now as she approached him. “What are you doing here?” he asked, before realising if this plan was going to work out they couldn’t just stay here and chat. “Nevermind, we have to go,” he told her, encouraging her to turn and ride along with him.

They galloped back towards town, getting almost the entire way there before Chuck started to slow down his horse to a steady trot and then to walking pace. Sarah followed suit, a little breathless from the whole adventure as she rode alongside the Sheriff and looked across at him.

“I was so worried, when you went off alone like that,” she told him. “One man against an entire Indian tribe... It seemed suicidal.”

“You came to help me?” he asked, pleased by that but also a little confused, after all, Sarah hardly seemed like her usual kickass self in this world away from his own, complete with long flowing dress and shy manners.

“As silly as it must sound, yes,” she told him, almost blushing as she fluttered her eyelashes his way. “I know I couldn’t have been much use to you, Sheriff Carmicheal, but I just... I panicked, I guess.” She smiled sweetly.

Chuck felt quite overcome to have her look at him that way, like he was some kind of hero and she was just a poor damsel who wanted to do nothing but adore him. He didn’t quite believe it, since she was still Sarah on some level, she had to be. Besides, his head was still stuck on that gun he was certain he’d seen her hide away when she’d come running in to save him, should he have needed saving.

“Not to worry, Miss Walker,” he said, with a tip of his hat and a smile that wouldn’t shift. “Everything’s going to be just fine and peaceful here in Nerdsville now,” he promised her, deciding that he may as well enjoy any part of this that he could for as long as it lasted.


	6. Chapter 6

“To Sheriff Carmichael,” said Boss Man Mike, with a scotch in his hand. “Saved this town from those pesky Indians and will surely make Nerdsville the most peaceful town in BuyMoria County,” he declared with a smile.

Every occupant in the crowded bar cheered their hero, drinking the given toast, as Chuck tried to look appropriately grateful and yet unabashed at the same time. Real heroes didn’t blush and giggle when given such praise, they took it like a man, with grace and dignity. The fact he’d really done nothing all that impressive to save the town anyway made him feel a little strange about the celebration in his honour. After all, if not for Morgan (aka Big Chief Running Beard) allowing him to fake his victory, Chuck might’ve rode back into town full of arrow shaped holes, with the Native American tribe bearing down on him and the town as a whole. Luck more than judgement had got him out of a spot, though he had a feeling that if he really had gotten into trouble, Sarah might’ve just been there to help save the day.

She was sat at the end to the bar now, every inch a lady still, perched on the bar stool with a glass held daintily between her fingers. Still, every time Chuck looked at her, he recalled the moment they ran into each other on the road, her rearranging her dress over something that looked distinctly gun-shaped...

“C’mon then, Sheriff,” said Casey, slapping him on the shoulder and pulling Chuck from whatever daze he might’ve been in. “Tell us how it happened, how you kept those mangy Indians away from our town,” he urged the unlikely hero.

There was a look in his eyes that suggested Casey didn’t quite believe that Chuck was the big damn hero everyone was treating him as, and whilst the man himself knew he was right not to buy into the story, he didn’t like it any better. He had no evidence to suggest that Charles Carmichael wasn’t a great Sheriff, a perfect shot, and total hero material. Hell, they’d only met yesterday, he didn’t know him at all, and yet Casey wore the same expression as when he looked at regular old Chuck Bartowski in the Burbank BuyMore, circa 2009. He saw a useless nerd with no spy skills that weren’t artificially inserted into his head. Well, Sheriff Carmichael was not going to stand for that kind of attitude here, not least because this guy was messing around with his sister behind closed doors, and that made him equal parts squicked and kinda mad too.

“Sure, I’ll tell you what happened,” he said, sticking out his chin, determined not to be put down by Casey or any other man in this bar for that matter.

Knocking back the shot of whiskey he’d been holding in his hand, Chuck immediately wished he hadn’t, as his voice left him a moment. Blinking hard so his eyes wouldn’t water, he focused on overcoming the power of the alcohol and opened his mouth to begin the fake version of what happened with the Indians today.

“Excuse me, Sheriff,” Sarah interrupted him before any sound made it out of Chuck’s mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said, almost blushing as she hopped down from her bar stool and all eyes turned to stare at her. “I just... I’m not sure I can stand to hear the details of such a fight,” she explained, playing the shy and fragile lady as she moved down the bar, the other patrons parting like the Red Sea to let her through.

“I can wait to tell my heroic tales until you’ve gone to your room if you prefer, Miss Walker,” said Chuck with a smile as she stood before him.

“Actually,” she said, smiling back coyly. “I was wondering, if you’d be so kind as to walk me to my room. I’m afraid I’m not used to alcohol and it’s gone quite to my head,” she feigned some kind of light-headedness, putting a gloved hand to his arm and making a big deal about it too.

Chuck swallowed hard. It wasn’t as if he and Sarah hadn’t got close in the real world. So close once that he’d been in a race against time to find a condom, but here just felt different somehow. He could tell by the low whistles and whispers coming from the crowd of men all around the bar that this was as big a deal as it felt to him, when he nodded his agreement to Sarah’s request. Her arm slid easily through his, and he walked her towards the stairs and up towards her room, much to the mixed jealousy and amusement of every other man in the Gunslinger’s Arms.

“That girl ain’t all she seems,” said Casey to no-one in particular. “Reckon she could eat the boy for breakfast she had a mind to.”

“She could eat me for any meal she wanted,” said Jeff with a hiccup as he leant heavily against the bar and watched Sarah’s bustled behind disappear up the stairs and around the corner.

For himself, Chuck had very similar feelings to Jeff when it came to Sarah. In the real world, he’d pretty much do anything for her, or so he’d always thought. When it came to the crunch and he had to choose between the spy life and running away with the girl he loved, things had got complicated, and in choosing his career he realised too late that he had broken Sarah’s heart.

Here in this strange world, things ought not to be so complicated, and yet Chuck was pretty sure they were. After all, even here in the wild west where women were usually one of two things, be it shy and quiet or loose and free, the man they called Sheriff Carmichael had an idea that Sarah Walker was neither of those things. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if beneath this soft and sweet exterior there was a badass gunslinger itching to get out. Now he was headed up to her room with her, intending to drop her off at the door and make his escape, and yet a voice in the back of his mind told him that wasn’t going to happen.

Unlocking the door to the room she was renting from Casey, Miss Walker slipped inside, a small gesture of her hand encouraging Chuck to follow. Swallowing hard, he did just that though hovered in the doorway still.

“Please, Charles,” she urged him. “I’d like to close the door so we can talk a minute... in private,” she added, leaning in too close to peer over his shoulder.

No-one was listening in as far as she could tell, and Chuck agreed with that as he turned to look the way she was and saw no-one there. Still, there was a good chance the guys in the bar were trying their best to be privy to whatever was going on here. Sure, as the world turned, they weren’t expecting to hear a conversation either!

Moving aside from the door, Chuck watched Sarah close the door and lock it up tight, depositing the key down into the front of her dress. He tried not to react to that, just laughed nervously as he allowed himself to sit down on the edge of the vanity table on the opposite wall, only to jump up again fast when the bristles of a hairbrush jabbed him in the rear.

“You’re very nervous for a Sheriff,” noted Sarah with a look in her eyes that meant business.

“I’m just, er... I guess I’m just a little confused,” he settled on eventually, the pair of them almost circling each other like predator and prey though it wasn’t overly clear which was which as Chuck forced himself to be cool and calm.

At the end of the day, it was Sarah he was alone with. Sure, in this place she looked a little different, but there were so many similarities between the wild west people and their modern-day Burbank counter-parts, he couldn’t imagine she was so very different. Casey was very like his doppelganger, and Lester and Jeff were practically carbon copies in looks and personality both, the only thing different appeared to be the clothes they wore.

“You don’t understand yet why I invited you up here.” Sarah smiled, a statement not a question, that much was clear. “And here I was thinking I’d made it obvious,” she said, making a sudden move forward and putting a hand to Chuck’s shoulder. “What can I tell you, Charles?” she sighed. “I’m just a woman who is very attracted to a man...” she told him, as she leaned in closer, her lips almost touching his own.

Chuck couldn’t miss this opportunity, he just couldn’t. In the real world, he and Sarah had come so close to being close, and here she was offering him the chance to at the very least kiss her; he’d be crazy not to take it

In a moment, his arms were around her, pulling her body flush to his as their lips met in a fiery kiss. It was evident she wanted him as much as he wanted her, which still wasn’t a feeling Chuck was entirely accustomed to. He was so used to pretending to be in love, masking what he really felt for the sake of the team, the mission, the job. Here in this strange alternate world, he didn’t have to care so much, he was free to kiss Sarah, to hold her, to love her.

Unfortunately, as with most situations like this that occurred between Chuck and Sarah, there was a catch. As their hands roamed over each other’s bodies and they fell back onto the bed in a pile of limbs, Chuck’s hand found its way up amongst Sarah’s skirts. He’d barely got as far as her knee when the feel of hot skin gave way to cold metal. She noticed too late that he had found her secret and by the time she managed to clamber off him, he was already pointing her own gun at her.

“Sheriff, please. I can explain,” she told him, hands raised in mock surrender.

Chuck’s hazy loved-up brain fought with itself for a moment, wondering if he seriously wanted her explanation, or if it might not be better just to the throw the gun aside and resume the making out which was much more enjoyable. In the end of course, he knew that wasn’t an option.

“Why do you have this, Sarah?” he asked her, sitting up on the edge of the bed and checking the small hand-gun, finding it was indeed loaded.

“A girl needs to be able to defend herself,” she said, shrugging her shoulders and straightening her skirts. “I just... Charles, I wish I could tell you the truth,” she told him, her expression apparently genuine though caught between sadness and frustration, perhaps even fear.

That last one stunned Chuck into silence. He never had seen Sarah really scared of anything, at least the Sarah he knew. Here she was different in some ways, if not many. Sure, he knew his handler turned partner in the real world was an awesome actress, and that could be true of the woman that stood before him now, but somehow, he couldn’t believe it. Her eyes spoke the truth, he was certain. Of all the people Sarah could fool, Chuck was pretty sure he wasn’t one of them anymore.

“Whatever this truth is, I wish you’d tell me,” he encouraged her, standing up to face her, handing back the gun he’d taken from her leg holster.

It proved he trusted her and that he wanted to do her no harm. It seemed to be enough as she laid the weapon down on the bedside table and nodded her head in agreement.

“I knew the former Sheriff of Nerdsville,” she explained, her eyes at the floor still as she went on. “I loved him once,” she admitted with a painful smile borne of painful memories. “When I heard what happened... I don’t know, I guess I came looking for vengeance, or peace, or... something.”

“You and Bryce,” he realised aloud that history here ran even more parallel to the real world than he’d imagined, “but that doesn’t explain why I’m here, in this room, unless...”

“I wanted you to trust me,” Sarah tried to explain, though she cleanly felt she was doing so quite badly. “I’m not what I seem, Charles. A woman shouldn’t have the skills that I do but Bryce taught me well. He said I was natural with a horse and with a gun.”

Chuck nodded that he understood, a genuine smile coming slowly to his lips. She was his Sarah, just the same as the one he knew in the real world, far away from this place. She could be sweet and kind, sexy and dangerous, all of the same qualities as her CIA Agent double in 2009 Burbank, were in there. It was the best kind of familiar to Chuck right now.

“You came here to help me,” he guessed, “with whatever danger might get thrown at me.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But when I met you, things changed,” she admitted. “Y’know I’ve been in this town less than two days and already it feels like every man in BuyMoria County has tried to make a move on me,” she explained. “You were the only one to be a gentleman, until I pushed you to breaking point,” she told him, her smile the strangest combination of sexy and demure.

Not for the first time in his life, Chuck felt kind of confused, but having Sarah here, pretty much telling him she was the same as the modern version of the woman he knew, it was comforting. Of course, the fact that some of the complications of the real world weren’t here making things difficult between them meant he had the opportunity to enjoy the fact Sarah wanted to be with him in every possible way.

“So, Sheriff Carmichael,” she said, suddenly very much in his space again, though he hadn’t noticed until her hands landed on his shoulders. “Now you know the truth about me, can we pick up where we left off?” she whispered in his ear.

* * *

“This model here is a little more pricey, but you get the extra capacity in the freezer compartment, plus-” Casey stopped mid-way through a sales pitch as his cell vibrated in his pocket. “Excuse me just a moment, folks,” he said to the young couple he had been serving, taking a few steps away as he pulled out the phone and checked the display. “Oh, crap!” he swore, hurrying around the corner and walking straight into Morgan coming the other way.

“Hey, John, where’s the fire?” he asked, not waiting for an answer before he went on, deliberately staying in Casey’s path so he couldn’t walk away. “Y’know it can be dangerous just running around the BuyMore, which is why we have rules-”

“Out of my way, Grimes,” he said through his teeth. “Unless you want someone to die,” he said in a low voice as he physically pushed Morgan aside and hurried away.

“And let that be a lesson to you, young man!” Morgan called behind him from his place sprawled against the shelving.

Casey didn’t hear a word as he headed back to the staff area, glad to find it empty. He had the secret door behind the lockers open in a second and was soon pelting down the steps into Castle. Still, Walker had beaten him to the punch and was checking the screens that were flashing with red warning lights about Chuck’s condition.

“His heart-rate and pulse are going crazy!” she told him frantically. “Temperature increase too. It’s like he’s having some kind of fit.”

Casey stared through the glass door at the prone form of Chuck as the younger man thrashed around some on the bed. Walker was right, he looked in much worse shape now than he had before.

The alarms had tripped and brought them here at least, but what they were supposed to do for the kid, Casey had no idea. He hated seeing a member of his team suffering, knowing he could do nothing to help.

Immediately he got on the video-link and called for General Beckman.

“Colonel Casey,” she greeted him shortly, waiting for him to ask the question she was already expecting.

“General, Chuck’s condition is getting worse,” he reported, stood practically to attention as always in her presence. “I just wanted to check how the lab tests were coming on the substance in his body.”

“I’m afraid that I have no news to give you at this time, Casey,” she told him, though it wasn’t the whole truth.

“General, we have to do something!” Sarah insisted as she appeared in Beckman’s view beside her partner. “Can they at least tell us how to control the symptoms in the meantime?”

“As I said, Agent Walker, unfortunately, I have no news I can give you at this time. I’m sorry,” Beckman added, genuinely it seemed, before severing the connection.

Agents Walker and Casey shared a worried look - it seemed the members of Team Bartowski really were on their own in this.


	7. Chapter 7

“Walker, will you sit down?” Casey urged her as she paced up and down in Castle, arms folded across her chest. “You’re driving me nuts,” he told her, as she complied at last, stopping by the glass through which she could see Chuck lying now motionless on the bed.

“I can’t stand this.” She shook her head. “Casey, I’m not built for this. I can’t just stand by and watch people suffer, I have to be doing something!” she raved, her voice growing louder and her tone more panicked as she went on.

“Walker... Sarah?” Casey tried a different approach as he tried to get her attention from his place sat at the table cleaning his guns. “I know you’re worried about him,” he said, as kindly as John Casey ever said anything to anyone, and she turned to look his way. “I don’t want to see the guy suffer either, but until the lab rats can give us answers-”

“Why aren’t they?” she cut in sharply. “Why are there no answers, Casey? They’re supposed to be the greatest scientific minds in the country, maybe in the world,” she reminded him. “Whatever The Ring comes up with, we’re supposed to be one step ahead,” she said, slamming one hand into the other to emphasise her point.

“I know.” He nodded his agreement, glancing at Chuck who lay still and quiet now, though the monitors showed his heart rate and temperature were both still high. “Doesn’t thrill me knowing my duty is to protect Bartowski and instead we’re sitting here watching him... suffer,” he amended his words at the last minute, mindful of mentioning the D word in front of Walker.

She was one tough cookie, she had to be to do her job, but when it came to Chuck Bartowski, well, even Casey knew he had a way of getting under a person’s skin. There just was no way you couldn’t like the guy on some level at least, and Sarah had gone and fallen head over heels for the geek, it seemed. If he did die, he wouldn’t stand in her way of taking down the son of a bitch that did this to him, in fact Casey was sure he’d be right beside her, helping her bring the asshole down.

Right now, they had no target to shoot at, no mark to hit, no intel to go on. They were forced to stay put and wait until they were a little less blind to what exactly had gone on here. The potential Ring Operatives they’d been fighting when this whole thing started had been taken away by those higher up the food chain, with no way of Casey or Walker themselves getting a chance to talk to them. Beckman seemed to know nothing of use, or at least she wasn’t telling Team Bartowski if she did, and so in the dark they must say.

It was killing Sarah and Casey not to be doing anything, to be forced to stand by and watch as their team-mate, their friend, a man who was such a big part of their lives these days, potentially just fade away. Nobody knew what he was suffering inside his deep and torturous sleep, but they did not doubt for a moment that it was awful for him.

* * *

“Oh, wow!” Chuck gasped as he rolled onto his back.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed with a sigh from her place lying there next to him in the hotel bedroom, apparently gasping a little to get enough air.

It might’ve made Chuck proud that he had managed to get her into such a state as this, after all, he would hardly count himself amongst the world’s greatest lovers, and Sarah was likely to be an experienced sort of a woman. It seemed however that he was enough of a man to satisfy her, and here they were, lying in the afterglow of their passion, a smile on both their faces.

A hundred times or more Chuck had imagined this moment, dreamt of it even, and yet the reality had proven to be even better than his mind could ever have conjured. Of course, a voice in the back of his brain was trying to tell him that his mind probably had conjured this up, in fact, but he was ignoring that voice for now. It had certainly felt real enough at the time, and Sarah seemed entirely real to him as she rolled onto her side, pressing her spent body against his own.

Chuck’s arm went automatically around her shoulders, keeping her close, his eyes closing as Sarah trailed kisses across his chest, apparently eager to seek out more of the pleasures they had already enjoyed. He couldn’t argue with that, especially not when her hands headed beneath the covers and...

A loud crash from downstairs broke them both from the heat of passion and brought them back down to Earth with a bump. Chuck sat up fast as Sarah did the same, the bed clothes clasped tightly to her bare chest. Clearly something bad was happening, a fight in the bar perhaps, and it suddenly occurred to Chuck that if that were the case, he was going to be the one expected to break it up. After all he was the Sheriff, the only man of the law around these parts...

A shout went up, then heavy booted foot-steps thumped up the stairs and right up to the hotel room door.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

A fist against the wood had Sarah reaching for her abandoned gun on the night-stand, but Chuck’s hand at her arm stilled her movement in a second.

“It’s okay,” he told her, hopping out of bed and hurriedly re-dressing as best he could, finding his clothes were strewn all over the place and mixed up with Sarah’s own.

“Sheriff Carmichael!” Jeff’s voice called as he banged on the door once again. “You in there?”

“Uh, yeah!” he called, almost toppling over as he looked away from his task of getting both legs in his pants whilst already wearing one spurred boot. “Yes, I’m here, I just... I’ll be right with you!” he called, staggering sideways into the vanity table and sitting down too suddenly on the stool in front.

Sarah reached across the bed for her dress, knowing there was no time to track down her underwear right now. It wasn’t as if anyone would notice, she surmised, as she did her best to re-dress quickly with a view to assisting Charles as best she could just as soon as she was done.

He was struggling with the buttons on his shirt by the time she got to him, having put one through the wrong hole and making a complete mess from there on out. Sarah gently knocked Chuck’s hands away and re-did all the buttons until he was properly dressed, then handed him his jacket to put on. He hadn’t noticed what she was doing next until he felt her hands near his butt and realised she was practically on her knees before him, fasting his belt and holster around his waist and forcing his other boot onto his foot.

From here, Chuck had quite the view of an ample bosom barely held into the dress Sarah wore without underwear to restrain it. Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes and tried to remember there was a crisis he had to deal with. Unfortunately, such sober thoughts were not enough to push out the very recent memories of skin on skin and moans of pleasure in his ear...

“Sheriff!”

Another call from beyond the door came then, this time in Big Mike’s voice. This was clearly no joke, something serious was going on if the ‘Boss Man’ was worried about it. Sparing just a moment to pull Sarah up to her feet and plant a quick kiss on her lips, Sheriff Carmichael then moved swiftly to the door and yanked it open, almost causing the group of men outside to tumble in on top of him.

“What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?” asked Chuck in his best cowboy drawl, as he positioned his hat back on his head and struck a manly pose.

“Apart from the fact your fly is open?” said Casey, muttering something under his breath that sounded distinctly like ‘moron’ as the Sheriff turned swiftly around and zipped himself up, right at the moment Sarah moved to exit the room.

“Is something wrong?” she asked as she squeezed past Chuck and faced the men that would leer at her - she tried not to notice.

“The Indians are coming!” said Jeff, practically tripping over his own feet as he came forward with Lester at his side.

“The Chief and at least a dozen of his tribe were seen on the outskirts of town,” the shorter man explained, both halves of Jeffster unsurprisingly panicked by the attack that was bound to happen as far as they were concerned.

Chuck looked unmoved, in fact Sheriff Carmichael almost looked amused by the news that Nerdsville was about to be under attack by Natives Americans. Of course, the townsfolk didn’t know that he and Big Chief Running Beard (aka Morgan) were old friends, and they didn’t need to either, as far as Chuck was concerned. He could be a hero here, and without having to try. No shots would be fired, nobody hurt, it would be easy... just so long as he got to talk to Morgan out of ear shot of everyone else. That thought had him moving a little quicker than before, squeezing through the crowd of men outside the bedroom door and hurrying down the stairs.

“Be careful, Sheriff!” Nurse Ellie-Faye called behind him.

When Chuck glanced back to shoot her a wave of acknowledgement and a smile, he was not so surprised to see Awesome now had his arm around her. What did make him do a double-take was the way Casey was looking at the Doctor, almost audibly growling with distaste. Of all the strange things in this brave new world, John Casey’s attraction to Ellie had to be the weirdest and most disturbing for Chuck.

Stepping outside of the Gunslinger’s Arms, Chuck very deliberately strolled on down the street away from prying ears as well as eyes. Around the next corner, out of the way of the gathering crowd of townsfolk, Chuck almost jumped out of his skin as he come across Morgan in full Native American garb still, surrounded by members of his tribe who all looked much more severe than their leader.

“Morgan... I mean, Big Chief Running Beard,” Chuck corrected himself, reminding himself that here he had to be Sheriff Carmichael, even if he was talking to a person who knew him as Chuck on some level. “What seems to be the problem here?” he asked in his best cowboy drawl. “You assured me there’d be no attack on Nerdsville”

“This isn’t an attack, Chuck, but it is way, way serious,” he said, grabbing the Sheriff by his elbows and making him look at him. “A couple of my guys found this just outside our camp,” he explained, pulling an item from his pocket and showing it to Chuck.

Immediately the familiar feeling of a flash washed over him. The spent bullet in Morgan’s hand was special, fired from a type of gun that few around these parts owned, but that one man was famous for using.

“Oh my God!” he gasped, fighting to retain his balance as the flash subsided and he looked his old friend straight in the eye. “Ring is back, isn’t he?” he said, speaking of the dark-haired, severe looking man he had just seen behind his eyes, the man they called Marcus Ring.

“Yeah, looks that way,” his little buddy agreed. “I wanted to warn you, Chuck, since you’re the only one here who stands a chance at beating him,” he told his friend, as the Sheriff turned pale.

He never fired a gun in the real world, not a real one with real bullets that could hurt people, and here the only time it had happened was for a set up with Morgan. Footsteps behind him startled Chuck and he turned around fast to see Sarah had hurried around the corner to find him. She looked shocked to see him coercing with Indians and that he knew he would have to explain, but right now he had a little more on his mind to worry about. If Ring came gunning for him, it seemed he was going to have to fight for his life, or die trying.

* * *

“Hey, Walker!” Casey called her from the medical text she was pouring over and pointed at the monitor hooked to Chuck. “Things are looking a little better here,” he told her with a rare smile that Sarah was soon sharing when she realised he was right.

“His pulse rate is coming down.” She nodded, glad to see it. “Practically normal.”

“Temperature is still kind of high,” said Casey thoughtfully, “but not as bad as it could be.”

It was good news, the first they’d had in a while and that made Sarah happy, albeit not entirely. She and Casey had been doing their own research since it became evident that little help was coming in from anywhere else. Beckman was acting very strangely about this whole situation, and though she didn’t want to admit it, Sarah was starting to lose faith. She needed Chuck to be okay, that was really all she needed right now, but so far, she could find no reference in even the most complex of medical texts that would help her to help the man she loved so much.

“Damn it!” said Casey suddenly, bringing Sarah back to reality with a bump as she focused her eyes on Chuck’s vitals again and realised his pulse rate had continued to slow even more than it should.

“This is ridiculous,” she said desperately. “He’s fluctuating too rapidly, his body can’t handle it,” she complained, though there was little or no point in doing so.

Though both had medical skills of some kind, neither Sarah nor Casey were doctors. Removing bullets, patching up wounds, it was child’s play to them, but right now they were in way over their heads. Without expert help, they had no way to help Chuck’s mind out of his nightmare or keep his body alive.

“We’ve got drugs down here,” said Casey thoughtfully. “More than one of them might help but...”

“It’s risky,” Sarah finished for him, as she looked his way.

They had no way of knowing what a new drug introduced into Chuck’s system might do. It could mix with the poison already there and make it worse. Besides if they gave him too much or too little, the consequences could be deadly all by themselves.

Still, they were running out of options. If Chuck’s body and mind continued to go through this kind of trauma, one or both were likely to shut down from the stress. This Casey knew only too well.

“Maybe it’s worth the risk,” he said , his eyes locked on Walker’s own.

She opened her mouth to reply but never got the chance.

“No, I really don’t think that it would be,” said a male voice that did not come from either of her partners.

Immediately, Casey’s hand went the nearest gun and had it trained on the newcomer’s chest in a second. He was a younger man, dark-haired, dressed in a smart suit that said he meant business. How the hell he’d got into Castle was anybody’s guess.

“No need to get jumpy,” he said, hands raised briefly in some kind of surrender. “My name is Daniel Shaw; I’m one of the good guys.”


	8. Chapter 8

“My name is Daniel Shaw; I’m one of the good guys,” the new arrival assured Casey and Sarah, though neither looked at all convinced.

“Yeah, ‘cause the bad guys never say that.” The NSA agent rolled his eyes, gun still trained on the man he didn’t know and didn’t trust.

“Really, Agent Casey, Agent Walker,” he appealed to them both to listen. “If you don’t believe I’m here to help both yourselves and Chuck, then perhaps you should ask General Beckman. She will confirm what I’m telling you.”

Sarah’s eyes shifted from Shaw to Casey and back. They couldn’t just take his word for it, even if he did know all their names and had found a way into Castle uninvited by any member of Team Bartowski. They had to live by the rule that no-one was to be trusted until proven otherwise; it was the only way to survive in their line of work.

“Fine,” said Sarah at last. “We’ll check,” she said letting her battle-ready stance go a little as she moved around behind Casey where she would still be safe, her eyes not leaving Shaw yet. “In the meantime, I don’t trust you,” she assured him.

“I really wish you would, Agent Walker,” said a familiar female voice, so suddenly that it almost made Casey jump, which was a feat in itself.

“General,” he greeted her, though he mostly still had his back to her, ever mindful of keeping an eye on the newcomer. “Can you confirm this man is-”

“Special Agent Daniel Shaw? Yes, Casey, I can.” she told him from the vidscreen that now had Sarah’s full attention,

“General, I don’t understand,” she admitted. “Why is he here? What does this have to do with what’s happening to Chuck?”

To her credit even Beckman looked uncomfortable as she was forced to explain a situation that was out of her control. Not much ever was these days, especially where Team Bartowski was concerned, and yet on this particular occasion she was compelled to go along with what she was being told without argument.

“What Agent Bartowski’s experiencing is part of his training,” she said sadly, apparently as underwhelmed by the situation as Sarah and Casey. “It is necessary for him to fight off the poison in his body alone, to prove that he is capable of the job he is taking on”

Sarah’s eyes grew wide with both shock and fear as she looked from the General to where Chuck’s prone form lay on the bed beyond a glass door.

“It’s a test?” she realised, swallowing hard. “A test we manufactured?” she checked, speaking perhaps too loudly and fiercely given who she was talking too. “General, this could kill him!”

“It’s unlikely to come to that,” Agent Shaw told her, letting out an almost inaudible sigh of relief now that Casey’s gun was on the table and not trained on his chest. “Really, Agent Walker, I would think you might have a little more faith in your friend Chuck,” he said as he came over to the door and peered through at the unconscious agent.

“Of course, I have faith in him,” confirmed Sarah, a little annoyed at this new guy’s attitude, “but he can’t... He’s never had to handle anything like this before.”

“We don’t even know exactly what it is the kid’s trying to handle,” pointed out Casey, noting that Beckman had since signed off and disappeared from the screen, leaving Shaw to explain himself alone.

“Fine, then let me elaborate,” he said, pulling up a chair and making himself comfortable, gesturing for Casey and Sarah to do the same - they sat down but neither looked comfy. “As you are aware, Chuck Bartowski was never trained to be a spy, not like we were, and it’s far more dangerous for him given his... gifts,” he said with a certain emphasis that could not be ignored.

“You know about the Intersect,” Sarah realised, a statement not a question, though Shaw nodded in response anyway before continuing.

“We can’t have Chuck out in the field if he can’t take care of himself,” he explained. “You two have been doing a wonderful job when he needed protection, but if he wants to be a spy in his own right, he has to learn to cope alone.”

“And you’re teaching him how by killing him with poison?” asked Casey, looking less than impressed. “How is that helping?”

Daniel Shaw got up from his seat then and walked over to the glass door, staring in at Chuck and checking his vitals that scrolled on a screen there. If he were honest, the signs were not looking good right now, but he wasn’t about to show any concern for what he was doing, as he still believed it was right. Walker and Casey had to think so too, or this was going to get complicated and messy.

“The chemical that has been put into Chuck’s system is a hybrid substance,” he told them, though his back faced them still. “It’s a specially designed drug constructed for this very situation,” he elaborated, turning around to face the conscious members of Team Bartowski now. “We need to know that Chuck is strong enough in both body and mind to do the job he believes he wants to do.”

“We get that part, Shaw,” Casey snapped. “You still haven’t told us what that crap is doing in Bartowski’s system, other than killing him.”

Shaw narrowed his eyes at the NSA agent, then switched his stare to Sarah and softened his looks some - she looked genuinely afraid for her friend’s life, though she was trying her best to hide it as any good agent would.

“As I’m sure you already figured out, the substance in Chuck’s body contains hallucinogens, designed to make him dream so vividly that he believes it’s all real. An alternate reality, if you will,” he explained. “In this other world, Chuck will fight the poison that is physically trying to take his body down. Put simply, if he believes he can win the fight and refuses to give in, he will survive.”

“And if he doesn’t?” asked Sarah, sure she knew the answer already but needing to hear it somehow. “If he doesn’t believe and gives in?”

“Then he dies,” said Casey when Shaw seemed unwilling to speak anymore, “and we can’t do a damn thing to stop it.”

* * *

Morgan was quick to leave Nerdsville, after all he was the Chief of an Indian tribe known to have attacked the town in the past. Before he left he made a promise to Chuck, that if he needed help with Ring, he and his tribe would be there to help. That only served to confuse Sarah even more, and the man who would be Sheriff knew he owed her an explanation, especially if he was going to ask her to fight by his side in this too.

“I thought you fought off the Indians before?” she checked, feeling more than a little bemused as Big Chief Running Beard and the men he had brought with him galloped back towards the hills, unharmed by Sheriff Carmichael.

“Yeah, about that,” said Chuck, shifting awkwardly. “Me and the Chief... his name is Morgan, we go back a ways,” he tried to explain, suddenly realising it would be harder than he thought to do so.

In the real world, he and Morgan had been best buds since their school days and knew everything about each other, from favourite pizza topping to best score on Duck Hunt. Here in this crazy world, even Chuck himself wasn’t sure what the connection was between a new Sheriff and the Chief of a large and scary Native American tribe from the nearby hills.

Thankfully, Sarah didn’t get a chance to ask too many questions as the townsfolk watched the Indians leave and came to check on Sheriff Carmichael. They seemed surprised to find him alive and yet relieved all the same.

“Oh my God, you’re okay,” gasped Nurse Ellie Faye. “We were all so worried!” she told the man who in the real world was her baby brother.

“I’m fine, sis... er, Miss Ellie,” he corrected himself fast, hoping she hadn’t noticed the slip, “but we all might be in for some trouble soon,” he admitted in his best cowboy accent. “I just got talking with the Chief. Marcus Ring is closer than we thought,” he told the assembled crowd, most of which had followed from the Gunslinger’s Arms it seemed.

Chuck’s eyes met Sarah’s own once again, and she shuddered at the news of her ex-lover’s killer coming back to town. The momentary fear and loathing was quickly replaced by a stare as cold as steel. She may be upset but she was also the toughest woman Chuck had ever met in his life. In Burbank she could kick ass, and here in the Wild West she would do the same, he was sure. Of course, it wasn’t going to be so easy as him just hiding behind her skirts here.

The townsfolk expected their Sheriff to protect them, to be a hero. Even with Sarah to back him up, Chuck wasn’t exactly confident that he could deal. Fighting a guy was easy enough, the Intersect would most likely kick in and help him there, but if it came to a shoot-out, it seemed like death could be the only outcome for one of them or the other. Chuck still wasn’t in a place where he could feel entirely comfortable with that.

“Chances are good he won’t come without a posse,” said Casey, squinting against the bright sunshine since he was without his cowboy hat. “You ready for that, Sheriff?” he asked, not entirely convinced apparently.

“Then they’ll face a posse,” said Devon firmly. “I’m not much use with a gun, better at stitching up bullet holes than putting them in people, but I’m here for you, Sheriff,” he declared.

“We’re all on your side, Charles,” Sarah assured him, her hand going to his arm and a smile on her lips as he looked her way.

It didn’t seem to matter that he couldn’t entirely explain his connection to the Indian Chief that wore Morgan’s face. Sarah trusted him anyway and was willing to stand by him, even if the worst was coming, and it truly seemed as if it was. He barely heard the other voices promising to take his side and stand by their Sheriff when Ring came calling. He didn’t notice Lester and Jeff sneaking back through the crowd to hide before they were inadvertently volunteered. Chuck was just too taken by Sarah and overwhelmed by both her reaction and the fear that still bubbled inside him at the thought of taking part in this showdown that was bound to come soon.

“I’m in,” said a man then, one Chuck knew oh so well before he ever looked towards the owner of the voice he’d just heard. “What do I have to lose?” Casey shrugged, as all eyes turned to stare.

It wasn’t that the residents of Nerdsville didn’t know Casey to be a tough guy and a good shot, but he rarely got into a fight that he could easily avoid. Now he was willing to stand by the Sheriff, who’s predecessor he had abhorred, and risk life and limb against the evil that was Marcus Ring.

Maybe nobody else could figure out why, but Chuck had a feeling he could have explained it. He followed Casey’s death-glare towards Awesome’s alter-ago who had his arm around Ellie, trying to comfort her in a time of distress. She seemed as if she were trying not to lean on him too much, probably for more than one reason, but she was Casey’s sole excuse for wanting to be the big man in this fight. Clearly, he and Ellie weren’t just getting to the squicky making out together; it was as if he really did love her. Chuck wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse. Right now, he had too much on his mind to be contemplating it for long.

“Right, let’s get back to the bar, make some plans,” he instructed the crowd. “When Ring comes, we’re gonna be ready for him.”


	9. Chapter 9

Those in town prepared to fight at the side of Nerdsville’s latest Sheriff were all assembled in the Gunslingers Arm, all except for Sheriff Carmichael himself, and the woman he already knew he was in love with; Sarah Walker.

“Before we go inside,” she said, catching his arm as they ascended the steps towards the saloon doors. “You need to explain to me how you and that Indian Chief are connected. I thought you’d had some kind of fight before but...”

“Ah, yeah, about that.” said Chuck, looking awkward as he glanced between her frowning face and the doors through which they needed to pass before too long, else risk the others coming out to find them. “Okay,” he said, taking Sarah’s hand and sitting them both down on the steps. “Morgan - that’s the Chief’s real name - he and I have been friends for a long time, ‘cept I hadn’t seen him for a while until a couple of days ago when the Indians attacked.”

“Charles, I don’t understand...” the expected interruption came from Sarah, since clearly it didn’t sound good that Chuck was friends with the person who had led an attack on Nerdsville, even if he wasn’t half so bad as the coming force of evil known as Marcus Ring.

“I know, it looked like we had a fight, and I kind of let everybody believe that,” he winced, knowing he’d done wrong and hating to think Sarah would take this badly, “but how is anybody in this town going to understand that I’m friends with a Native American Chief?” He sighed. “And y’know they were never actually attacking us. Milbarge just made a whole big deal out of nothing.”

Sarah stared at Chuck a long moment, considering all that he’d said to her. She would rather believe him than not, after all, she was pretty sure he already had her heart, which meant he ought to have her trust we well. 

“I believe you, Charles.” She smiled at last, her grin growing wider at the sight of his own and the sound of his sigh of apparent relief. “And I want to be by your side in this fight,” she promised him, a little worried when she saw his smile waver.

“Yeah,” he said, looking down at her hand still held in his. “There’s something else I should really tell you, about me and guns.”

“Charles, I’ve seen you shoot, I’ve heard your reputation,” she said, shaking her head, sure he was about to be far too modest about his abilities.

“I can shoot, that’s not the problem,” he tried to explain, checking over his shoulder before leaning in close to her and whispering his confession. “Sarah, I’ve never actually shot a man... y’know, to kill him,” he admitted, swallowing hard after just saying those words.

“Oh, Charles,” she said, reaching a hand to his face. “If it’s possible, that only makes me love you more,” she assured him, leaning in until her lips met his in a perfect kiss.

It gave Chuck a little more hope for this world he’d landed in than he’d ever had before, even when he and Sarah had ended up in her bed together just hours before. Having her love him and feel free to be with him and vice versa was a huge deal, but the fact she would stand by him no matter what meant so much more than anything else. He could deal with what was coming if he had her at his side, loving him as she said she did.

“Sarah, you have no idea how glad I am to have you with me in this fight,” he told her when they parted from their kiss. “I don’t know how I’d deal in this crazy place without you.”

“You don’t have to,” she assured him. “I appreciate your gratitude, Charles, but...” she faltered, looking a little awkward as she dipped her eyes to the ground, “do you think you could ever feel for me, what I feel for you?” she asked, as she glanced up to meet his gaze once again. “Could you love a woman like me, Charles?”

The Sheriff smiled a genuine smile, pushing a stray lock of blonde hair carefully from her face.

“Sarah, I already do,” he promised her. “I always will,” he swore, sealing his words with a further kiss on her lips.

Together they could face anything.

* * *

Sarah Walker wasn’t sure she’d ever been this scared in her whole life. All the situations she had found herself in over the years as a spy, times when she was sure she was staring death in the face, still she had never been this afraid. Losing her life didn’t mean much to her, she had a survival instinct, of course she did, but she wasn’t scared of death itself. What really worried her was losing someone she cared out so much.

Chuck meant the absolute world to her. Sarah had been sure her heart was broken when Bryce was (supposedly) killed, but the idea of losing the man they called the Intersect, right now she honestly didn’t know how she would survive that.

Since Shaw knew there was nothing Sarah or Casey could do to help Chuck, he seemed happy enough to let them go about their business. Neither of them were happy making friends with the asshole that had poisoned their team-mate, and so Casey had decided he may as well go back to the BuyMore, whilst Sarah stepped inside the room where Chuck lay unconscious still.

Sat beside him now, tears came to the blonde’s eyes as she thought too much about how awfully pale he looked, and what horrors he might be facing behind his eyes, what pain he might be suffering. She couldn’t collapse into tears now, she had to be strong for Chuck and hope to God he could hear and feel her as she picked up his hand in hers and spoke softly near his ear.

“Hey, Chuck,” she said, forcing a smile through her sadness. “Y’know, you told me you were supposed to be pale because you’re a nerd, but this is going too far.” She tried for a joke but it fell kind of flat given she could find no laughter in herself and he was unconscious and therefore incapable. “Please... please, just hold on,” she urged him, pushing sweat-drenched curls from his forehead. “Chuck, if you can hear me, I need you to know that I’m here for you, me and Casey we’re going to try to help you if we can,” she promised, though she was pretty sure it would be impossible. “You just have to hold on. You have to try, Chuck. Be brave and fight. Whatever comes at you, just fight it,” she said, squeezing his hand so tight she might have been hurting him, but then he wasn’t able to tell her so it really didn’t matter right now.

Beyond the glass doors, Shaw watched the scene before him and sighed. It was a shame to see a good agent go to waste, but he couldn’t feel too badly. He was only doing his job.

* * *

It was getting late and all those gathered in the Gunslinger’s Arms were feeling the need to call it a night. Of course, plans had to be finalised before that, they had to be ready for whenever Marcus Ring rolled on into town. Weapons were being stock-piled, anything anybody had to spare or could lay their hands on. Boxes of ammo were loaded up, guns cleaned and checked to ensure they’d run smooth.

Sheriff Carmicheal, Miss Walker, and Casey shared a table, discussing battle plans. Truth of it was that Chuck didn’t really know what he was talking about and was tending just to initiate the relevant discussions and let Sarah and Casey make the big decisions here.

Big Mike had come up with maps of the town from way back, not exactly up to date but good enough for making plans with. They figured out all the routes Ring could take into town and the best place for look outs to be placed, then started to think about some kind of rotation for said look-outs.

“He’ll probably ride in by daylight,” said Casey thoughtfully, “but I figure a three-point watch, say, four-hour shifts, be on the safe side.”

“Three-point, four-hour, should do it.” Chuck nodded as if knowingly, when in reality the thought never would have occurred to him at all.

Casey growled in the back of his throat, having noticed by now that the Sheriff seemed to be little more than playing along here. Between that and his still bubbling anger and jealousy from earlier seeing the Doc cosying up to Ellie Faye, it was all starting to damage his calm.

“I need another drink,” he said, getting up from the table and striding away.

“Just the same in every dimension,” muttered Chuck as he watched him, causing Sarah to look at him strangely. “Er, y’know, I mean... there’s a guy like him in every town, right?” he said, trying to cover for the ill-chosen words that had just spilled out of his mouth.

“Sure, yeah.” She nodded after a moment, continuing to look at Chuck strangely even when his eyes returned to the map on the table, and he noticed even though he tried not to.

“So, we’re gonna need Casey for the whole weapons thing,” he said quickly. “From what he was saying he has the biggest armoury so... huh, where’d he go?” he asked, glancing up and looking towards the bar when the saloon owner was nowhere to be seen.

“I don’t know,” replied Sarah, shaking herself out of too much thought. “Out back maybe?” she suggested, as the Sheriff rose from his seat.

“I’ll go check,” he offered, scuttling away if only to put his nerves back in order.

He was so dumb, mentioning alternate dimensions in front of Sarah. She very nearly started asking a lot of awkward questions that he wasn’t so sure he could or should answer. He told her he loved her, and he meant that, but right now throwing dimension jumping or possible hallucinations and such into the mix was only going to complicate matters.

“It’s not like I can just say ‘Hey, Sarah, remember that show _Quantum Leap_?’” he muttered to himself, stopping short of elaborating when he heard a familiar voice in the back room - it was Ellie.

“Devon just keeps asking and asking,” she said, sounding sad and frustrated as Chuck listened at the door, “but I can’t marry him,” she lamented. “He’d be such a good match for me, I know that, but I just can’t do it.”

“It’s not like you’ll ever marry me either,” came the reply and Chuck bit his lip as he realised it was Casey.

Honestly, he was just about to bolt, sure that if he didn’t he was once again going to have to endure hearing (though thankfully not seeing) his sister and his handler/friend sucking face. Strangely, the man that looked like a Sheriff never shifted, but then the conversation was taking such an intriguing turn, he just couldn’t help but continue listening.

“Marry you?” Ellie echoed, a slight giggle in her voice that might’ve been nerves or possibly incredulity. “John, you never asked me,” she pointed out.

Chuck wasn’t sure what was going on since Ellie’s statement was met with silence. Creeping up to the corner around which he was sure to find the couple he was listening in on, he craned his neck to try and see what was going on. Casey had his back to Ellie now, one hand removing his cowboy hat from his head, the other running over his face as he sighed.

“Never figured you’d want to marry a man like me,” he said with a shake of his head as he turned to face her again. “All the sneaking around, Ellie. You don’t want anyone to know we’re together.”

“You know how things are for me,” she told him, stepping in closer and putting a hand to his face. “My parents are gone, I only have the little money I can earn working for Devon and it doesn’t go far,” she explained what he ought to already have known. “Pretty much all I have in the world that’s mine is the respect of the people in BuyMoria County. I can’t be seen to be... getting close to a man out of wedlock,” she explained as best she could.

“Thought you were just ashamed of me,” said Casey, looking now like he felt kind of stupid for ever believing such a thing as his hands went to Ellie’s waist and he pulled her closer.

“John! I could never be ashamed of you, or of what I feel for you!” she promised, perhaps a little mad that he would suggest such a thing but equally as understanding of why he might feel that way. “Now I’m just afraid that you’ll go into this fight with Ring and... and I might lose you,” she said tearfully, putting her arms up around his neck.

As strange as Chuck might usually have felt seeing these two in an embrace, he almost forgot who he was looking at. Dressed as they were like characters from a Western and apparently wanting to be so close to each other, they might be anybody, not really other-world copies of Casey and Ellie at all. This was what the would-be Sheriff was telling himself anyway, in spite of the fact he couldn’t really believe it. They talked and behaved too much like the people he knew for him to doubt who they were, in every way apart from the kiss they fell into in that moment. His eyes closed fast, a natural reaction to the sight of his sister getting thoroughly kissed, but he was forced to open one eye and squint at the couple so as to know when it was over.

Ellie was breathless in the best way when John finally stopped kissing her. She had no doubts of his love for her, she had never doubted it. If she had, she wouldn’t have risked all she had by sneaking around with him so long. If only things were different, if John could have courted her properly, got her Daddy’s permission to woo her and all. As it was they were caught in a situation they couldn’t get out of, forced to be together only in stolen moments and behind closed doors, unless of course he would consent to marry her. It certainly seemed he might now.

“Ellie, you know I love you,” he assured her, one hand running through her hair. “I’m gonna go into this fight with Ring, but I am not gonna die,” he promised, making her meet his eyes. “And maybe, after this is over...” he said, smiling and sinking to one knee, as Ellie covered her mouth with her hands showing how shocked she was by this turn of events. “Ellie-Faye, will you marry me?”

“Oh, John,” she breathed, a giddy smile on her face as she reached for him. “Yes, I will!” she told him excitedly as he got back to his feet, picking her up off hers with ease and swinging her around and around as he kissed her senseless.

Chuck wondered at the smile he found creeping into his own lips as he slipped away before they realised he’d been watching. That was possibly one of the weirdest things he’d ever seen or heard in his entire life, and yet it was also one of the sweetest.

“What the hell is this place doing to me?” he asked himself worriedly as he walked away, and Casey and Ellie continued to make out in the background.


	10. Chapter 10

Things were going well, or as well as things could go, Chuck surmised, when you were trapped in an alternate dimension with Wild West versions of all your friends and work colleagues, planning a gun battle with the guy that killed your predecessor as Sheriff!

Chuck was trying to be positive. He had Sarah at his side, willing to fight for him, as well as being in love with him apparently. He had Casey, Devon and Morgan all ready to fight by his side, come hell or high water, and he still had the Intersect. That last part seemed the most weird to Chuck, since if this really were the Wild West, such technology was from light years into the future. Still, he didn’t question it, he couldn’t afford to. He just had to hope they all survived the upcoming fight with Marcus Ring, and that this adventure might soon be over so he could return to present day Burbank where things made a little more sense.

“Okay,” he said, standing over by the bar where a map on the town was laid out, held flat by shot glasses, as Chuck, Sarah, and Casey made their plans. “Dr Devon is here, two more guys over here and here,” he pointed to areas of the map. “They’re the early warning system.”

“Those might be the main routes into town, but there are more,” said Casey with a shake of his head, and a look that suggested he thought the Sheriff was a fool that Sarah didn’t miss.

“It’s not Charles’ fault that supposedly brave men ran out on him when they realised how serious this was,” she pointed out, speaking of at least half a dozen men, surprisingly including Big Mike and not surprisingly Emmett Milbarge. “Not everybody is a hero.”

“Yeah, well,” the Saloon owner groused. “Looks like we’re gonna have to be.” he said, looking to the doors as they swung open and Awesome’s alter-ego ran in, sweating profusely and breathing hard from the exertion of the very fast ride and run that’d brought him home.

“Sheriff, they’re coming!” he told Chuck. “Ring and two more guys.”

“Just two?” Sarah checked, finding it hard to believe, as she picked up her gun from the table and slid the safety off.

“There were more, I’m pretty sure of it,” explained Devon as Ellie appeared at his side, apparently concerned for his welfare - that only made Casey look more mad as he prepared his own guns for the fight. “They came screaming down from the hills with the Indians on their tails. Arrows probably took out the rest of the posse, but I didn’t have time to find out”

“Okay,” said Chuck with a nod, trying to keep the shake out of his voice. “Okay, this is good, it’s fine,” he said, looking to Sarah for some kind of conformation.

“It is,” she promised. “We can do this, Charles, I know we can.” She smiled, though there was some fear in her eyes too, Chuck was sure of it.

In some ways that actually helped. If she was afraid that gave him licence to be a little nervous too. Still, Chuck knew he had to focus now, had to believe he was going to come through this fight the victor. He was Sheriff Carmicheal here and was expected to rally the troops and end this thing once and for all.

“You ready, Sheriff?” asked Casey as he moved around the bar to leave, noticing that Chuck seemed to have drifted off into La-La Land at some point.

“Yeah, I’m... I’m ready,” he agreed, pushing his guns into his holsters and heading out with his two closest allies. “Devon, I need you to clear the street,” he said as he passed by the Doc. “Get everyone in their houses, I don’t want anyone getting hurt unless they have to.”

“He can barely stand,” Ellie protested, but Awesome shook his head, determined to see this through.

“I can do it, Ellie-Faye,” he told her, all heroic and manly as ever he was in present day Burbank. “I have to.”

Casey only sneered at the exchange, letting Sarah and Chuck out of the front door so that his last moment before facing this gun battle was alone with Ellie himself.

“You get yourself inside, lock the door, and stay away from the window!” he told her definitely. “I don’t want you hurt in this,” he told her, his hand at her cheek a moment before he ran out the door to do his duty.

The plan swung into action before the street was even clear of the folks that lived and worked there. Casey took the far end and Sarah the nearer one of Nerdsville’s main street, though she wouldn’t go until she planted a kiss on Chuck’s lips, with a promise that he could do this. It was all he needed right now, that and the knowledge that he had both her and Casey on his side in this. They stayed back in the shadows of the buildings so even he could no longer see them, but they were always there and he knew it.

Just as soon as Chuck got into the middle of the street, he could feel the horses’ hooves thundering towards him. They came from the end of the street where Sarah was hidden, Ring and two of his posse, headed for the Sheriff as if to trample over him with their steeds. Chuck didn’t flinch, though his eyes closed of their own accord as he yelled;

“Stop, by order of the Sheriff of Nerdsville.”

The three horses were pulled up simultaneously, Ring’s own animal stopping just an inch or two short of trampling Chuck’s toes. He gingerly opened his eyes to see this and his head spun wildly in an epic flash just as soon as his gaze landed on the man they called Ring.

It was strange but ‘Marcus Ring’ wasn’t the name that raced past his eyes then, though the face was the same - dark hair and dark eyes, kind of looked like Christopher Reeve in his Superman days, but now wasn’t the time to wonder on it.

“Well, if it isn’t the new Sheriff in town.” He smirked as he climbed down from his horse and faced Chuck with an evil smile that made his insides twist together.

“That’s right, Ring,” he said, tilting his chin, channelling his inner Eastwood or similar as his hands hovered near the guns that were strapped to his hips. “This is my town now, and you’re not welcome here,” he told the guy, as the two that had ridden in with him also dismounted and smacked the horses so they ran away.

In that moment of brief commotion, Casey saw an opportunity. He leaned out from his hiding place and took out the man on the right with a bullet to the chest. Chuck watched the lump of a guy slump to the ground and anticipated what came next, whipping his guns from the holsters at the same moment as Ring and his one remaining man. The pair backed up some, mindful of the fact they were fighting more than just the Sheriff here now.

“Looks like you’ve got a little help, Carmicheal,” noted the man in the black hat, seconds before a shot was fired from the other end of the street and Ring’s second man fell forward to the dusty ground with a bullet in his back.

“Looks like you don’t, Ring,” replied Chuck, his confidence growing every second as he strode forward, both pistols trained on the other man’s chest, though the enemy continued to smirk.

“We both know it’s not that simple,” he said, side stepping a little, seemingly knowing just where Sarah was and that if he moved over just enough she would not be able to successfully shoot at him without coming out of her hiding place.

From his new position he could also make out Casey in the distance, and before Chuck had a chance to react, a shot was fired from Ring’s gun in the direction of the Saloon owner who would be a hero.

Glancing back for a split second only, since it was all he could afford, Chuck saw Casey drop to the round clutching his leg. He wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t good.

“Don’t look back, Carmichael!” he called, his gruff strained voice mixing in with Ellie’s wailing as she ran out to aid him.

Chuck moved over, blocking Ring’s view of his friends.

“You didn’t oughta done that,” he said, in real cowboy drawl, his fingers on the triggers of his guns, squeezing more and more and yet never quite making a shot yet.

A part of him was glad when he realised Sarah was willing to do this for him. She came creeping up behind Ring, quiet as a mouse, and Chuck did his best to keep his eyes off her for fear of attracting the other man’s attention. Unfortunately, Ring’s man that Casey had shot perhaps wasn’t as dead or even as wounded as they thought, his hand suddenly making a grab at Sarah’s leg and pulling her down. Her yelp of pain and panic both had Ring’s attention in a second and he turned to make a grab at her.

“She’s not a part of this, Ring, let her go,” Chuck pleaded with him, as the barrel of Ring’s gun pressed into Sarah’s temple.

“Now why would I want to do that, Charles?” he asked with a hollow laugh. “I killed her old boyfriend, I’m gonna kill you.” He grinned. “Why not make it a full set?”

Chuck saw red then, looking from Sarah to Ring and back. His head went into overdrive, a flash hitting him full force and almost knocking him over. He knew how to get out of this, how to save them both, and somehow as his eyes opened and met Sarah’s own, he realised she knew just exactly what he was thinking. A little barely-noticeable nod was all it took.

“You’re a fool, Ring,” said Chuck. “You think you’ve got the upper hand, but you forgot one thing,” he told him with a smirk that was rarely seen on his genuine face.

“And what’s that?” asked Ring curiously, his grip tightening on Sarah’s throat even now.

Chuck spared one hand to flick his white hat up on his head and readied himself in a real cowboy battle stance.

“I’m Sheriff Charles Carmichael,” he said proudly. “And I don’t go down without a fight,” he said with determination. “Sarah, go!” he yelled suddenly then, forcing her to make a break for it by biting Ring’s arm, as Chuck levelled both his guns at the outlaw’s chest and pulled the triggers.

The bullets shot out of the guns as if in slow motion, spinning through the air and making the strangest high-pitched whistling sound that made Chuck want to wince. Still he kept his eyes focused on the projectiles as they headed for Ring’s chest, just about to make impact when...

Chuck’s eyes shot wide open and he sat up too fast, finding the world around him to be completely different to what it was just a split second before, and yet one thing remained the same. Launching himself from the bed he’d been lying in, Chuck’s hands were around the throat of the man who wore Marcus Ring’s face, almost choking the very life out of him before anyone had a chance to react.

“Chuck, stop! Please!” Sarah’s words cut through the white-hot fury and adrenaline that had been powering the Asset-turned-Spy and he seemed to come to his senses in an instant.

Casey grabbed Chuck and pulled him away, finding it harder than he usually would up to the point Sarah spoke. It was as if Bartowski had doubled in strength despite the fact he had appeared close to death by poison just moments before. He was powered by anger and adrenaline it seemed, but soon Casey had him pulled off Shaw, the special agent rubbing a hand round his sore throat as the NSA man pulled Chuck’s arms behind his back and held on tight.

“Calm down, Bartowski,” he instructed, though honestly, he would’ve like to have seen him tear Shaw a new one, now wasn’t the time or place.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” said Shaw, though nobody cared enough to ask the question.

“I think you should leave,” Sarah told him as she moved towards Chuck, confident that he definitely wouldn’t harm her, especially now as his eyes seemed to gain some focus and his breathing evened out. “Chuck?” she said carefully, glad when he looked her way with a glimmer of understanding.

“Sarah,” he breathed. “I… I don’t know what happened,” he admitted, as his legs seemed to give way underneath him.

“Easy there, soldier,” said Casey as suddenly there was no resistance from the kid, only a dead weight in his grasp.

The two agents moved Chuck back to the bed, sitting him down there whilst he got his bearings. He looked terribly pale and was bleeding from the arm where he’d ripped out wires that connected him to monitors before. Sarah knelt before him, trying to keep him calm and check he was okay, but no matter what she and Casey said or did, Chuck’s eyes kept straying to Shaw.

“I meant what I said!” Sarah snapped at him. “You need to go until we’re sure he’s okay,” she said, turning angry eyes upon her fellow CIA agent.

Shaw just nodded his head and without a word turned on his heel and left, knowing he was only making matters worse here.

“He was... He was Ring.” said Chuck shakily as he watched the other guy leave, putting a hand to his head that ached terribly. “It was like a dream but it was so real, I don’t know...”

“It’s okay, Chuck,” Sarah assured him, one hand grasping his, the other pushing hair from his face. “You’re going to be okay, I promise.”

Casey realised he was the spare part here in his little romantic reunion and so moved to go.

“I’m going to let Beckman know he pulled through,” he said as he reached the door, before turning back with an awkward smile. “Glad you’re back with us, Bartowski,” he told him, something that might’ve meant more to Chuck if he was really aware of what the hell was going on.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” said Sarah with tears in her eyes that she couldn’t control and was hardly even aware of. “Chuck, I was so worried about you.”

“I’m okay,” he told her. “I think... I think I’m okay,” he said, shaking his head a little in the hopes it would clear the fog that had settled there but immediately regretted the movement as the world spun out of focus.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked carefully, as he put a hand to his aching head a moment.

“Yeah, maybe,” he confirmed as he blinked at her, “but first I wanna know what the hell happened to me. Sarah, who is that guy that was here before?” he asked, looking from the blonde to Casey who hovered beyond the door, his duty to Beckman done and wondering now whether to walk in on this moment or not.

“You deserve to know what was done to you,” said Sarah definitely, helping Chuck up from the bed and assisting him through to the main room where they all sat down at the table; it was explanation time.


	11. Chapter 11

“All we know for sure is his name is Daniel Shaw and he’s supposed to be a good guy,” said Casey with a look that proved he didn’t believe a word of it.

Chuck stared up at the NSA agent from his seat, nodding his head that felt more scrambled than it had in a long time. Flashes screwed him up sometimes, but never like this. Everything was so fuzzy, so mixed up. Everybody had two names and two faces given the dream-like state he had found himself in until reality came rushing back just a half hour or so before.

“He’s not,” he said, suddenly recalling the flash that had occurred when he came face to face with Marcus Ring in the wild west. “He’s not a good guy.”

“Chuck, what do you mean?” asked Sarah, leaning in from her seat beside him, her hand at his arm trying to get his attention.

The Asset continued to stare at nothing for a long moment before his eyes suddenly snapped up and he turned to face Sarah. He looked so pale and so confused, it pained her to see him like this, just as much as it had to have him completely unresponsive.

“Shaw is Ring,” he insisted “I can’t explain how I know, not without you guys thinking I’m crazy, but he is not on our side, no way,” he said definitely.

“You’re gonna have to explain that a little better, Chuck,” Casey told him with a shake of his head. “I can’t say I trust the guy, but Beckman confirmed his identity.”

“I don’t care!” yelled Chuck, slamming his fist against the table, startling himself above everybody else and making his team-mate sneer. “I’m sorry,” he apologised immediately. “I just... You don’t understand what happened to me.”

“Then tell us,” Sarah urged him. “All we know is that needle went into you and you were out cold for days,” she told him. “Shaw said there was a drug in your system, a hallucinogen, in part.”

“That explains a lot,” said Chuck with a wry smile as he sat back in the chair, putting his hands to his face as another wave of nausea swept over him, no doubt the after-effects of these drugs. “I... I woke up and I was in a western,” he said, peering over the tips of his fingers at Sarah and then glancing at Casey as his two Agent buddies shared a bemused look. “Yeah, I know how that sounds, but I was in a western, like I was John Wayne or something.”

“From those movies you were watching,” Casey recalled from the night when Chuck had been shot with the needle and fallen into his coma like state. “Brain took the last thing it remembered clearly and built a dream scenario around it,” he surmised.

“Maybe,” agreed Sarah, “but you said it felt real?” she asked Chuck who slowly nodded, mindful of his still-aching head.

“I was the Sheriff of this town, and everybody I knew and loved was there... just not quite themselves,” he told them. “and I know I sound like Dorothy in a weird re-telling of the Wizard of Oz, but you were there, both of you, and you were just like you only... well, I guess like wild west ancestors of yourselves or something,” he tried his best to explain what he knew made little or no sense right now. “Awesome was the Doctor and Ellie was the nurse and Jeff and Lester ran the general store...”

“That must’ve been quite the experience,” said Sarah, finding half a smile despite the seriousness of the situation.

She had almost lost Chuck today, she had feared him dying and then soon after feared him never being able to live with himself if he killed Shaw. He certainly seemed as if he wanted to when he first came around. Either way, she could’ve lost him, and was so relieved not to have done so. Now, hearing about the strange world he had seen in his drug-induced sleep, well, she couldn’t help but find a little humour in it - it did sound strange and amusing.

“Get to the part where Shaw was there,” Casey prompted when Chuck got quiet again. “How could he be in your head, you never met the guy?”

“I don’t know.” The Asset shook his head. “I honestly don’t, but he was there, and he was not a good guy,” he promised the two of them. “The whole of Nerdsville was either afraid of this guy or they joined me in the fight against him.”

Sarah and Casey let the reference to Nerdsville slide since it didn’t seem entirely relevant right now. They shared a worried look though, perhaps a little because of what this whole thing might’ve done to Chuck’s mental state, but more so because of what he was implying about Shaw. This man was supposed to be on their side. Of course, poisoning Chuck and almost killing him wasn’t exactly evidence of his decency, but he had been cleared by Beckman as a CIA man. That didn’t explain why Chuck would see him as the ultimate enemy in his mind’s eye, when in reality he’d never seen the man’s face until today when he woke up.

“Maybe it was part of the test,” suggested Casey. “See what you’d do when you woke up and saw the guy from your hallucination.”

“But how would Shaw get into the hallucination in the first place if Chuck never met him?” asked Sarah. “And why would he be the bad guy when he was so adamantly trying to convince us he was on our side? None of this makes any sense.” She shook her head.

Between the two of them, Chuck tried to fend off the headache that was still threatening to come back full force and battling the nausea that refused to disappear. His body had been through a lot these past few days, and his mind perhaps more so. He felt disorientated to say the least, and Casey and Sarah bickering over his head really wasn’t helping much.

“Guys, guys!” he called when they continued their discussion that was fast turning into a ‘heated debate’ the forerunner to the more common ‘fight’. “I’d really like to go home, if that’s okay.,” he said seriously, still holding his head. “I know you’ve seen me sleeping the past few days but it was not restful,” he reminded them.

“Okay, Chuck.” Sarah smiled softly at him as she reached a hand out to brush his hair off his face, the same thing she’d done so many times when he was unconscious. “We’ll take you home and talk about this later.”

* * *

Chuck fell asleep in the back of Casey’s car as he and Sarah took the exhausted guy home. Walker spent the whole time checking on him in the rear-view, it wasn’t as if Casey could fail to notice, but he didn’t say anything. Truth was he was worried about Bartowski too. The kid had been through a hell of a lot, and not just since he fell unconscious a few days ago. These past couple of years had been a rollercoaster, even for himself and Sarah. For Chuck, going from a civilian to a would-be superspy, it was a lot for him to take. Now add a possible double-agent or similar into the mix and a few days trapped in a hallucinated world that almost killed him, Casey could see why Chuck would be scared and Sarah would be worried about him. The whole thing bothered him just the same, even though he wasn’t about to admit it out loud.

“Casey,” said Sarah as they pulled up at a red light. “Do you think Chuck could be right about Shaw?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head as he glanced sideways at her. “Beckman cleared him, but I’ll admit there’s something about the guy I don’t like.”

“You don’t exactly like anybody,” she pointed out to him with half a smile, not least because when he opened his mouth to answer her and then closed it fast, she was pretty sure he was going to elude to the fact he did like and trust her, and maybe even Chuck too.

“Look, we don’t know exactly what that stuff did to Bartowski’s body, or what the Intersect was doing whilst he was out cold,” said Casey with a sigh as the light hit green and he was free to drive on. “Maybe he’s right about Shaw, maybe he’s not, but right now there’s not much we can do about it either way.” He shook his head as he turned into the street on which he and Chuck both lived.

Sarah knew he was right, there wasn’t much to do except keep Chuck safe like they always had before and keep their eyes open where Daniel Shaw was concerned. Taking off her seat belt, she turned and peered into the back of the car where the Asset-turned-Spy slept soundly for now. It seemed a shame to wake him, but they had no choice.

“Okay,” she said, making to get out of the car. “If you help me get him to the door, then I can take him inside, deal with Ellie.”

Casey nodded his agreement and they woke Chuck up, helping him out of the car and encouraging him to walk, however shakily, through the gates, past the fountain, and up to his own front door.

“Are you with me, Chuck?” asked Sarah, holding on tight to her man. “I need you to be awake, just for a little while,” she encouraged, as his eyes went in and out of focus a minute.

“I’m here,” he assured her. “Kind of wish I wasn’t... not that I want to be anywhere else, I just...”

“I know.” She nodded and smiled in such a way as to put his mind at ease, if only for a minute. “Now, we’re gonna go in, and I’m gonna tell Ellie you just feel out of it after a plane journey, okay? Then we’ll head straight for your room.”

Chuck nodded his agreement as Sarah put the plan in to action. Both his sister and Awesome seemed a little surprised by Chuck’s being back so suddenly, and by the state he was in, but once Sarah assured them he was going to be fine, thankfully they let them be. It would have been too much if they went into Doctor mode and wanted to check his health, and it was running a risk facing them at all, but right now Sarah and Casey both knew Chuck needed familiar surroundings and his own bed to sleep in.

Sarah wasn’t surprised to find her partner outside the window when she got Chuck into his room.

“Everything okay?” he checked, looking past Sarah to the prone form lying down on the bed.

“Yeah, no difficult questions.” She smiled, feeling thankful. “But I’m gonna stay with Chuck for a while, watch over him.”

Casey nodded his understanding and made to turn away, only to hear Chuck call his name. Turning back and leaning in the window, he realised the kid had pulled himself up against the headboard and was staring out at him in the oddest way.

“Casey, do you... do you like my sister?” he asked, causing both the NSA agent and Sarah to frown - it was an odd kind of a question for him to ask after all.

“Sure.” He shrugged, not sure how else to answer. “Eleanor Bartowski is a fine woman and a good doctor,” he said stiffly, before sparing Sarah a nod and turning to go.

Neither of them noticed him pause a moment before going into his own apartment. They didn’t know that Ellie was on the doorstep peering out, sharing a look with her neighbour across the courtyard that definitely meant something...

Back in Chuck’s room, Sarah closed up the window and came to sit by him on the bed. He was already half asleep again, but his eyes fluttered open as her hand touched his, and a smile came to his lips.

“It’s okay, Chuck,” she promised him. “It’s all going to be okay now,” she said, with tears coming to her eyes that she just couldn’t help.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said sleepily, holding her hand in his own now.

“It’s not your fault,” she told him, feeling so relieved he was here with her, so many emotions she’d been holding back too long finally bubbling over. “Chuck, I just... I’m so glad you’re back. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening and... and you wouldn’t know that... I love you,” she told him, so softly that he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d heard her right.

The way his eyes shot open, wider than she’d ever seen them, told Sarah the news came as quite the surprise, or perhaps it was just shock that she’d admitted such a thing. He had to know she loved him, that she had always loved him, though the words had never come until now.

“I love you too, Sarah,” he whispered, pulling on her hand until she moved close enough for the pair to share a sweet kiss.

This moment in reality was far more special to Chuck than even making love with alterna-Sarah in the wild west had been. She laid down beside him on top of the covers of his bed, watching over him as he fell asleep, both of them knowing that everything was going to be okay now, one way or another.


	12. Epilogue - 6 Months Later

Chuck still wasn’t sure how comfortable he was about this, about any of it, truth be told. Being the Intersect had never been easy, an Asset that had to be protected by Sarah and Casey. Then he was a spy, a real genuine, passed the exam spy, and things should have been easier, but they weren’t.

Facing off with his mind’s own idea of The Ring had been tough enough but reality threw him even bigger curve balls as he returned and was forced to face the real organisation that would destroy him.

It was six months to the day since Chuck had woken up in the Castle and launched himself at the man he was sure had to be the enemy. Sarah and Casey had stopped him that day, stopped him before he could kill Special Agent Daniel Shaw. Just a few weeks ago from today, they had helped him put that same guy into the ground.

Daniel Shaw was no Special Agent, at least not for the CIA. He had his own agenda, The Ring’s agenda, and it was his own experiment with Chuck’s body and mind that had been his undoing. Sure, it had only been a hunch borne out of a dream, but from Day One none of Team Bartowski had trusted Shaw, mostly because of the Intel Chuck believed he had locked up somewhere in his head.

It was when Orion returned that things got serious. Stephen Bartowski was the very best ally for the team, being both Chuck’s father and the creator of the Intersect. He was all too aware what both side of this fight were capable of, and he was determined to stand by his boy. It was strange to Chuck that he hadn’t seen his Dad inside his head during the dream-like hallucination of the Wild West he had lived in for days, those few months ago. Thinking about it led him to realise that perhaps there was a reason he never saw his father’s face, because he didn’t need to. He always had him inside his head and heart, where Stephen was forever even when he had gone away and left on more than one occasion.

Now everybody was here, and everybody knew why. Well, not quite everybody, but that was probably for the best. Shaw was dead and gone, The Ring destroyed, at least it seemed that way for now, but one other person who Chuck would have said just six short months ago was needed here for absolute happiness was gone...

It was weird how well Ellie had gotten along without Devon by her side. She and Awesome had seemed strained relationship-wise since the wedding, and when she discovered the truth about her little brother, it was just too much pressure to bear. Knowing Chuck had lied to her, she seemed to be able to take that, but knowing Devon had done the same, she seemed to take that harder somehow.

Chuck tried to talk to his sister about it, but she wouldn’t say much. Sarah in her infinite wisdom suggested that perhaps Ellie was just looking for an excuse to get out of the relationship, even sub-consciously. She certainly wouldn’t be the first to use any little detail and blow it up into something worse than it was just so they could leave a person or throw their partner out.

Devon had gone quietly, which made Chuck even more glad he had left when he had. If he wasn’t willing to fight for Ellie, then maybe he hadn’t really been as Awesome as he always seemed after all. Of course, it had occurred to Chuck soon after that his single sister might find another man, and lo and behold, she and Casey could often be seen talking and laughing together in the courtyard or at the BuyMore.

Sarah seemed stunned by the turn of events, but Chuck never flinched. He had considered telling his girlfriend about the couple being together in his drug-induced sleep, but it almost seemed as if that might jinx it somehow and he really didn’t want to do that. He had of course shared a great many details of his so-called hallucination with Sarah, as they grew ever closer and seemed content to be in love and have the whole world know it at this point. Being a couple and spies as well was never going to make life easy, they knew that, but it was what they wanted right now and they were going to give it their best shot.

Tonight, was a celebration of their relationship, amongst other things. The party was fairly impromptu and had no particular title or meaning. The group gathered here had just wanted to be grateful and happy in their achievements these past six months, and Ellie had been more than willing to throw the affair in her own apartment.

Chuck was trying to relax and be comfortable, but more than one thing stopped him. In a way, they were celebrating the fact that Shaw was dead, and as much as he hated the guy and had to be glad he was gone, it seemed wrong somehow to party because any person had been killed. Another thing making him shift with unease was the dangers he knew might well exist, now that so many ‘civilians’ knew his spy secret. First Morgan, then Ellie, on top of Sarah, Casey, and his Dad, obviously. This entire room of people could be in danger at the drop of a hat because of him and the secrets locked inside of his head. Still, nobody seemed to be thinking about that except Chuck right now as they laughed and drank and such, all happy enough in their celebrations.

“That’s a serious face for a party,” said Sarah as she appeared at his side with a glass of wine in her hand. “Aren’t you happy, Chuck?” she checked.

“Yeah, sure, of course,” he assured her, his smile a little lopsided as he put his arm around her. “I think maybe this theme is throwing me a little though...” he chuckled as he adjusted the cowboy hat on his girlfriend’s head to better see her face.

“I did try to tell Morgan it might not be the best idea.” She rolled her eyes. “Is it too much for you?” she asked, looking genuinely worried as she met his eyes.

Chuck looked away and around the room at the assembled family and friends. Ellie and Casey were in one corner, the pair of them smiling wider than Chuck had seen either of them do in weeks. Morgan was setting up the games console for another game of Duck Hunt, whilst Chuck’s Dad leaned on the back of the couch observing. Beside him, Chuck held Sarah close beneath his arm, loving knowing they were for keeps this time, and nothing was going to get in the way of that.

“No,” he said with a genuine smile. “No, this is perfect,” he assured her, leaning down to kiss her on the lips.

“So,” said Sarah as they parted, a smile on her own lips by now. “What’s happens next, cowboy?” she joked.

“That’s Sheriff Carmicheal to you, Miss Walker,” he told her, in a not-so-good Southern drawl, “and I got one or two ideas...” he said, sweeping her up off her feet with ease and making her laugh long and loud.

Life was never going to be easy and straightforward for them, not for any of the people gathered here in this room, but right now Chuck had plenty to smile about and he intended to do so, for just as long as he could.


End file.
